We have six babies in our lives.
Just born in the last half hour.
Sugar had 6 babies. She's a slimmed down girlie now. :)
Hopefully they will all survive.
Friday, April 27, 2007
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Dad's Birthday Party
ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stupid computer..... Now I have the fun of doing this all over again!!!!!!!! Stupid computer crashing after I had just inputted the WHOLE DAY!!! ARGH!!!!
Okay, rant over now. :)
Did you know my dad is now 72 years old? Isn't that a great reason to have a b-day party? yes, he did. He invited all us local family members over for dinner and visit.
Our family had the audacity to arrive first!!! Can you believe it? We NEVER arrive first for family stuff ever! When we got there, we actually wondered if we somehow got the date wrong. :)
Anyways, turned out well, Justin had napped before we got there so he was alert and ran eagerly for the toy closet (funny how quick they learn where that is). Hauled out all the cars he could get his little hands on and was off having fun. We had a nice visit.
Fred and his girls arrived (Caroline at coffeebreak rally) around 1230ish, mom started dinner. We had roast beef, mashed taters, green beans, peas and slightly frozen applesauce (my fav). Bill arrived just as we were starting to eat (great timing). it was so easy making more room for him. It was good food! Justin had started a wee bit early which turned out nice for me, I got to eat MOST of meal while it was warm (instead of having to help him eat). I still had to help him, but not as fast. :) We all ate too much I think. :)
We had a fruit bowl for dessert.
After lunch we spread out a bit. Sierra and I went to the basement, played a rousing game of multi-puck air hockey. Then used the blackboard for a while. Justin joined us for a great scribbling contest. Sierra won! :)
Justin played with big trucks while I loaded the van with garage sale items from mom's basement.
Just as we were about to leave (due to tired Justin) Judy, son Shane and hubbie Henry arrived. So we visited outside with them for a while. Mom announced cake, icecream and strawberries just before we wanted to head off again, so.... we stayed a bit longer. Still think we all ate too much! BUT mmmm.....cake, ice cream.....Strawberries...YUM!
Nancy our newest neighbour, was outside when we got home so Justin and I visited for a bit. Turns out Owen (her son) is 9 years old now and was celebrating that achievement in life. She gave Justin a left over goodie bag. :)
Transferred garage sale stuff to basement, walked the boy and the dogs, and then relaxed with Thomas the train. Justin just LOVES thomas.... :) tain tain is a frequent cry in our household these days.
And that was our day. I'm tired, yes, I really should do those dishes...all 8 of them....but I'm really bagged and my bed is calling loudly to me. :) Good night!
Okay, rant over now. :)
Did you know my dad is now 72 years old? Isn't that a great reason to have a b-day party? yes, he did. He invited all us local family members over for dinner and visit.
Our family had the audacity to arrive first!!! Can you believe it? We NEVER arrive first for family stuff ever! When we got there, we actually wondered if we somehow got the date wrong. :)
Anyways, turned out well, Justin had napped before we got there so he was alert and ran eagerly for the toy closet (funny how quick they learn where that is). Hauled out all the cars he could get his little hands on and was off having fun. We had a nice visit.
Fred and his girls arrived (Caroline at coffeebreak rally) around 1230ish, mom started dinner. We had roast beef, mashed taters, green beans, peas and slightly frozen applesauce (my fav). Bill arrived just as we were starting to eat (great timing). it was so easy making more room for him. It was good food! Justin had started a wee bit early which turned out nice for me, I got to eat MOST of meal while it was warm (instead of having to help him eat). I still had to help him, but not as fast. :) We all ate too much I think. :)
We had a fruit bowl for dessert.
After lunch we spread out a bit. Sierra and I went to the basement, played a rousing game of multi-puck air hockey. Then used the blackboard for a while. Justin joined us for a great scribbling contest. Sierra won! :)
Justin played with big trucks while I loaded the van with garage sale items from mom's basement.
Just as we were about to leave (due to tired Justin) Judy, son Shane and hubbie Henry arrived. So we visited outside with them for a while. Mom announced cake, icecream and strawberries just before we wanted to head off again, so.... we stayed a bit longer. Still think we all ate too much! BUT mmmm.....cake, ice cream.....Strawberries...YUM!
Nancy our newest neighbour, was outside when we got home so Justin and I visited for a bit. Turns out Owen (her son) is 9 years old now and was celebrating that achievement in life. She gave Justin a left over goodie bag. :)
Transferred garage sale stuff to basement, walked the boy and the dogs, and then relaxed with Thomas the train. Justin just LOVES thomas.... :) tain tain is a frequent cry in our household these days.
And that was our day. I'm tired, yes, I really should do those dishes...all 8 of them....but I'm really bagged and my bed is calling loudly to me. :) Good night!
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Sunday Afternoon
So it's Sunday afternoon, I"m sitting here waiting for Justin to wake up and thought hmmm... should probably update the View! So here I am.
Our life for past week or so....
Easter Sunday we went up to visit Mom and Dad. We left right after church, Justin slept, Jim relaxed and I drove. We arrived, Justin stayed sleeping, Jim and I went in and enjoyed soup with my parents. We had a nice visit over our meal. After lunch I checked on Justin who had just woken up. So mom and dad were able to enjoy their grandson for a while too. :)
We needed to leave after a couple of hours because Ina was in hospital (lady from church). She was having some trouble breathing. We had a short visit with her. Then Justin and I left to stretch out little boy legs while Jim visited longer. Justin had a chance to talk with the nurses and enjoy a juice and cookie. Lucky boy! :)
Then this week Jim had a cold so our Monday day away became a Monday stay at home so he could rest up a bit. He was a bit better on Tuesday so we slipped up to London to run a couple of errands. Tuesday afternoon, and all day Wednesday I spent (with Justin) reorganizing the basement. Jim needed to get at the network thing and all my garage sale stuff was in the way, plus we were getting tired of having wood shavings all over the house, so the purchase of three inexpensive shelving units at Wal-mart went a long way to helping get things in better shape. Now Justin can play in the same room I am in while I do laundry or fuss around in the basement. Jim's weight stuff will be kept more sawdust free and therefore more useable. AND Jim can fiddle around with the network thingey to his hearts content.
Thursday afternoon I went fishing while Justin napped.
Friday morning Justin had book club. Boy..all the kids were wild! :) Made me think a storm was coming. I had book club as well. We read "The 100 Secret Senses" by Amy Tan. Some of us liked the book, some of us well....didn't. I read the start, a piece in the middle and the ending. I found it a hard book to get into, the end of the book though made me think I should have stuck it through. I might pick it up again one day.
oh I almost forgot. On Friday night we all had a lovely meal with the pastor from the CRC church in town. They hosted. It was fun and the food was good! :)
Saturday Justin and I left Jim at home and drove three ladies from Church to the RCW ladies conference. It was held at Drayton RCA this year. Mary Clark was the speaker. She heads up women's ministries within the RCA.
Her Topic was "God's hospitality". I found her hard to listen to, not because of her, but due to the fact that she had to keep pausing for the translator. I probably lost the first 10 minutes while I adapted to the listen, wait, listen, wait routine. Most of the women I talked with struggled with the same issue. Although I appreciated the need for a translator, I really wish that there hadn't needed to be one. Her topic was a one that women in our classis needed to hear and probably didn't really hear because of the whole listen and wait routine.
Mary's whole point was the use the gift of hospitality that God has given to each of us, and use it to advance the kingdom of God. Hospitality is the giving of ourselves to others. Once I understood that this was her definition of hospitality it all made sense...but it took me a while to get there.
You see MY definition of hospitality is someone who makes you feel comfortable from the moment you get in their door and who LOVES having people over for dinner or tea or whatever. I DO NOT see myself as having the gift of hospitality at all. NOT saying I don't like having people over but I find it a whole heap of work and I worry about this that and the other thing and AHH. Just fills me with horrors most of the time. What if I can't get the house clean enough or what if I serve the wrong food or what if the cat or the dog or the _____ does something it aught not to. and ... it just goes on and on.
AND THE BIGGEST THING???? What if my guest does something that freaks me out and makes my house feel unsafe to me.???? What if???? STUPID I know. After all...GOD LOVES ME! He won't let anything happen to me that I can't handle without his help. I can trust his promises. I can. See...it's taken me years to realize that! (sometimes slow on the uptake)
Anyways, back to Mary's talk. Hospitality...giving of ourselves to others. This doesn't mean as a church that we need to start new programs. What it means is us, as individual people, stopping to take 30 minutes there, 1.5 hours there just to sit and see the people around us. See what their needs are and just go out and meet those needs. Simple, straight-forward meeting the needs of people. Showing them Jesus through our actions. She kept telling us.. STOP. Think outside box. Think outside the walls of your church. Do it differently.
For instance... we could see a struggling young mom and offer to help her do her shopping. We could do someone's laundry for them. We could offer a cup of tea. Different needs, different ways of helping. We just need to stop and look for those ways of helping/showing/teaching.
Overall, it was a good message.
In the afternoon we watched a skit "what kind of tater are you". one of the ladies from Drayton put on a skit about different types of taters "agi-tator" "peace-tator" "spec-tator" and so forth. It was not bad at all. it was actually fun to watch these ladies be different taters. :)
There were quilts hung all over the church. Made more than one woman wonder out loud what was with all the quilts. Turns out Drayton church, for the Mennonite Central Committee, makes quilts. These quilts are distributed world wide to people in need of well.. quilts to keep warm. They gave them out in Equador, Africa, and other places. Wherever there has been a disaster (God or Human made) and there are people in need. That was way cool to see. This year Drayton made 63 quilts over the winter. Good to see that in action.
I enjoyed the fact that there was a babysit. Justin had a blast. He even napped! :) He ate a bit, didn't drink as much as I'd like, but he had fun. He had a good sleep last night. He was a happy boy, well, at least until he learned that no, he couldn't bring that lovely airplane home with him. :)
I enjoyed the book table. Even picked up a couple of things. One a book that I think will be helpful with homeschooling in the future, some scrapbooking stuff and something else that I can't recall right now. Spent less than $25. (I had a personal limit of 40 so I did well).
So what didn't I like?
1. The agenda pushing... we have a women's conference coming up in Chicago... boy was attendance at this event being pushed. yes, I would like to go. Will I go? No... not at 149$ hotel bill per night and paying daily parking PLUS $350 (about that) for the conference itself. Cannot afford it. WILL NOT ask my church to foot the bill for it. A conference like this should be able to be held elsewhere for a lot less. Also many of the topics seem like "fluff" to me. Denomination wide conferences I do believe should offer more than "fluff".
2. the "tolerance" stuff. We have to tolerate. I agree that we have to tolerate people over things like building structure, clothing, taste in music and such like. Over such things, the overwhelming concern should be .... how do we reach people for Christ and teach them well. I do not agree that we should tolerate bad doctrine. I don't think that evangelism outside the church is more important then having people that will hold to the truth of the gospel. There must be room for both. I think that once bad doctrine is allowed a strong foothold, what is to stop it from becoming more prevalent?
Our life for past week or so....
Easter Sunday we went up to visit Mom and Dad. We left right after church, Justin slept, Jim relaxed and I drove. We arrived, Justin stayed sleeping, Jim and I went in and enjoyed soup with my parents. We had a nice visit over our meal. After lunch I checked on Justin who had just woken up. So mom and dad were able to enjoy their grandson for a while too. :)
We needed to leave after a couple of hours because Ina was in hospital (lady from church). She was having some trouble breathing. We had a short visit with her. Then Justin and I left to stretch out little boy legs while Jim visited longer. Justin had a chance to talk with the nurses and enjoy a juice and cookie. Lucky boy! :)
Then this week Jim had a cold so our Monday day away became a Monday stay at home so he could rest up a bit. He was a bit better on Tuesday so we slipped up to London to run a couple of errands. Tuesday afternoon, and all day Wednesday I spent (with Justin) reorganizing the basement. Jim needed to get at the network thing and all my garage sale stuff was in the way, plus we were getting tired of having wood shavings all over the house, so the purchase of three inexpensive shelving units at Wal-mart went a long way to helping get things in better shape. Now Justin can play in the same room I am in while I do laundry or fuss around in the basement. Jim's weight stuff will be kept more sawdust free and therefore more useable. AND Jim can fiddle around with the network thingey to his hearts content.
Thursday afternoon I went fishing while Justin napped.
Friday morning Justin had book club. Boy..all the kids were wild! :) Made me think a storm was coming. I had book club as well. We read "The 100 Secret Senses" by Amy Tan. Some of us liked the book, some of us well....didn't. I read the start, a piece in the middle and the ending. I found it a hard book to get into, the end of the book though made me think I should have stuck it through. I might pick it up again one day.
oh I almost forgot. On Friday night we all had a lovely meal with the pastor from the CRC church in town. They hosted. It was fun and the food was good! :)
Saturday Justin and I left Jim at home and drove three ladies from Church to the RCW ladies conference. It was held at Drayton RCA this year. Mary Clark was the speaker. She heads up women's ministries within the RCA.
Her Topic was "God's hospitality". I found her hard to listen to, not because of her, but due to the fact that she had to keep pausing for the translator. I probably lost the first 10 minutes while I adapted to the listen, wait, listen, wait routine. Most of the women I talked with struggled with the same issue. Although I appreciated the need for a translator, I really wish that there hadn't needed to be one. Her topic was a one that women in our classis needed to hear and probably didn't really hear because of the whole listen and wait routine.
Mary's whole point was the use the gift of hospitality that God has given to each of us, and use it to advance the kingdom of God. Hospitality is the giving of ourselves to others. Once I understood that this was her definition of hospitality it all made sense...but it took me a while to get there.
You see MY definition of hospitality is someone who makes you feel comfortable from the moment you get in their door and who LOVES having people over for dinner or tea or whatever. I DO NOT see myself as having the gift of hospitality at all. NOT saying I don't like having people over but I find it a whole heap of work and I worry about this that and the other thing and AHH. Just fills me with horrors most of the time. What if I can't get the house clean enough or what if I serve the wrong food or what if the cat or the dog or the _____ does something it aught not to. and ... it just goes on and on.
AND THE BIGGEST THING???? What if my guest does something that freaks me out and makes my house feel unsafe to me.???? What if???? STUPID I know. After all...GOD LOVES ME! He won't let anything happen to me that I can't handle without his help. I can trust his promises. I can. See...it's taken me years to realize that! (sometimes slow on the uptake)
Anyways, back to Mary's talk. Hospitality...giving of ourselves to others. This doesn't mean as a church that we need to start new programs. What it means is us, as individual people, stopping to take 30 minutes there, 1.5 hours there just to sit and see the people around us. See what their needs are and just go out and meet those needs. Simple, straight-forward meeting the needs of people. Showing them Jesus through our actions. She kept telling us.. STOP. Think outside box. Think outside the walls of your church. Do it differently.
For instance... we could see a struggling young mom and offer to help her do her shopping. We could do someone's laundry for them. We could offer a cup of tea. Different needs, different ways of helping. We just need to stop and look for those ways of helping/showing/teaching.
Overall, it was a good message.
In the afternoon we watched a skit "what kind of tater are you". one of the ladies from Drayton put on a skit about different types of taters "agi-tator" "peace-tator" "spec-tator" and so forth. It was not bad at all. it was actually fun to watch these ladies be different taters. :)
There were quilts hung all over the church. Made more than one woman wonder out loud what was with all the quilts. Turns out Drayton church, for the Mennonite Central Committee, makes quilts. These quilts are distributed world wide to people in need of well.. quilts to keep warm. They gave them out in Equador, Africa, and other places. Wherever there has been a disaster (God or Human made) and there are people in need. That was way cool to see. This year Drayton made 63 quilts over the winter. Good to see that in action.
I enjoyed the fact that there was a babysit. Justin had a blast. He even napped! :) He ate a bit, didn't drink as much as I'd like, but he had fun. He had a good sleep last night. He was a happy boy, well, at least until he learned that no, he couldn't bring that lovely airplane home with him. :)
I enjoyed the book table. Even picked up a couple of things. One a book that I think will be helpful with homeschooling in the future, some scrapbooking stuff and something else that I can't recall right now. Spent less than $25. (I had a personal limit of 40 so I did well).
So what didn't I like?
1. The agenda pushing... we have a women's conference coming up in Chicago... boy was attendance at this event being pushed. yes, I would like to go. Will I go? No... not at 149$ hotel bill per night and paying daily parking PLUS $350 (about that) for the conference itself. Cannot afford it. WILL NOT ask my church to foot the bill for it. A conference like this should be able to be held elsewhere for a lot less. Also many of the topics seem like "fluff" to me. Denomination wide conferences I do believe should offer more than "fluff".
2. the "tolerance" stuff. We have to tolerate. I agree that we have to tolerate people over things like building structure, clothing, taste in music and such like. Over such things, the overwhelming concern should be .... how do we reach people for Christ and teach them well. I do not agree that we should tolerate bad doctrine. I don't think that evangelism outside the church is more important then having people that will hold to the truth of the gospel. There must be room for both. I think that once bad doctrine is allowed a strong foothold, what is to stop it from becoming more prevalent?
Saturday, April 07, 2007
so how does one resist this?
Justin's been learning new words lately.
Today he surprised me with Here it is (when I asked him to get his boots). Eat! at breakfast (when he wouldn't eat.... I think I was supposed to or something).
And then here we are at wal-mart....needed to get something there... anyways, walking through the toy section just to see if there are any good deals (sometimes we find amazing deals there). not today though...but what do I hear from my boyo toys! toys! (very excited commentary from this 21 month old lad). followed by a mournful toys...toys... as we move further away from said toys (6 six trucks in a box). Daddy distracted him with a push toy which was kinda interesting but not a keeper (but got us away from the trucks).
Then came tain tain! Tain tain!
Thomas the train caught his eye...
How does one shut out mournful tain tain noises from a boy child?
One realizes that thomas the train sells for outrageous amounts of money is how! :)
Doesn't make it any easier though..... such a mournful little voice.....
We settled for a couple of dinky cars on sale for 82 cents a piece...way better than one TAIN TAIN for 7.49 a piece! Even if one has to deal with a mad boy throwing a truck because it's not a tain tain!
He is VERY happy with the truck now though. :)
Today he surprised me with Here it is (when I asked him to get his boots). Eat! at breakfast (when he wouldn't eat.... I think I was supposed to or something).
And then here we are at wal-mart....needed to get something there... anyways, walking through the toy section just to see if there are any good deals (sometimes we find amazing deals there). not today though...but what do I hear from my boyo toys! toys! (very excited commentary from this 21 month old lad). followed by a mournful toys...toys... as we move further away from said toys (6 six trucks in a box). Daddy distracted him with a push toy which was kinda interesting but not a keeper (but got us away from the trucks).
Then came tain tain! Tain tain!
Thomas the train caught his eye...
How does one shut out mournful tain tain noises from a boy child?
One realizes that thomas the train sells for outrageous amounts of money is how! :)
Doesn't make it any easier though..... such a mournful little voice.....
We settled for a couple of dinky cars on sale for 82 cents a piece...way better than one TAIN TAIN for 7.49 a piece! Even if one has to deal with a mad boy throwing a truck because it's not a tain tain!
He is VERY happy with the truck now though. :)
The week before Easter
Snow...that's what I can say... SNOW! We have in excess of five inches of snow on the ground.
It's supposed to be spring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice thing about our walk this morning, I could just let Sassy run because no one else was up. Somehow fresh snow brings out the lagging behind abilities in Riley so we didn't quite make as good a time as I wanted, ah well, snow can be fun! We broke a fresh trail for almost the whole walk. We did meet a lovely Kelpie/Cattle Dog on the way back. She had a most excellent recall! I complimented her owners on that. And then we talked a bit about a raw food diet. They seem interested.
What has this past week been like?
Justin has a cold and is breaking two molars in at the back (I'm fairly sure) hard to check since he likes to bite down and those teeth of his are sharp!
Jim had a crazy week with meetings almost all day Tuesday, Bible study on Wednesday and so he had Thursday to try to get a sermon done for Friday, plus two more due for Sunday. He worked hard and got them done.
As for me, I had Coffee-break on Wednesday, it was a weird meeting to me. Started off sloppy but ended up with some good discussion where you could tell that people were thinking. Rather neat that part. I did dislike that they forewent the prayer share time in order to start the lesson after a lengthy announcement time. So that didn't help my feelings of dissatisfaction when the study commenced, so my guess is that the start of the study may not have been sloppy but more that I needed to get my head in the right frame of mind.
Justin and I had fun at toddler time on Thursday even though we got there late. :)
Good Friday sermon was well-done. People seemed to like it. Justin napped in the nursery (shocked me to hear that). Jim's mom came up for the service and for lunch.
Oh, and I got my order in to William Dam for seeds. So nice that they have their on-line ordering all set up now. VERY convenient, and saves a stamp too! I just ordered a bunch of different veggies.
It's supposed to be spring!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nice thing about our walk this morning, I could just let Sassy run because no one else was up. Somehow fresh snow brings out the lagging behind abilities in Riley so we didn't quite make as good a time as I wanted, ah well, snow can be fun! We broke a fresh trail for almost the whole walk. We did meet a lovely Kelpie/Cattle Dog on the way back. She had a most excellent recall! I complimented her owners on that. And then we talked a bit about a raw food diet. They seem interested.
What has this past week been like?
Justin has a cold and is breaking two molars in at the back (I'm fairly sure) hard to check since he likes to bite down and those teeth of his are sharp!
Jim had a crazy week with meetings almost all day Tuesday, Bible study on Wednesday and so he had Thursday to try to get a sermon done for Friday, plus two more due for Sunday. He worked hard and got them done.
As for me, I had Coffee-break on Wednesday, it was a weird meeting to me. Started off sloppy but ended up with some good discussion where you could tell that people were thinking. Rather neat that part. I did dislike that they forewent the prayer share time in order to start the lesson after a lengthy announcement time. So that didn't help my feelings of dissatisfaction when the study commenced, so my guess is that the start of the study may not have been sloppy but more that I needed to get my head in the right frame of mind.
Justin and I had fun at toddler time on Thursday even though we got there late. :)
Good Friday sermon was well-done. People seemed to like it. Justin napped in the nursery (shocked me to hear that). Jim's mom came up for the service and for lunch.
Oh, and I got my order in to William Dam for seeds. So nice that they have their on-line ordering all set up now. VERY convenient, and saves a stamp too! I just ordered a bunch of different veggies.
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