photo 365, Photo #20

A quiet night at home. feeling blessed. enjoyed time with the Tindols and Mom. Forgot to pick up my camera before they walked out the door, sadly.

Photo 365, Photo #19

beautiful day. took lots of fun photos. exhausted. :)

photo 365, Photo #19

Got a little scrap on today. At least shopping, anyway. Found some great deals and took a fun photo besides. :)

Photo 365, Photo #18

Happy Mama. Meeting her at the airport. The beginning of a great time.

Unlikely Disciple

Wow. Just finished reading this book, and it was very intriguing. Basically, the author abandon's Brown University (uber-liberal) for a semester's hiatus at Liberty University, a super-conservative Baptist University. He goes in as an agnostic liberal and, well, comes out on the other side. It's a true story. And he wrote a book about his experience. I thoroughly enjoyed the read because it's funny, It's also a very insightful look in to the Christian world from an outsider's perspective. It's extremely thought-provoking.

A few things really surprised me...

- the author was very open -minded. He was extremely willing to lay aside his personal beliefs to fully envelop himself in the process. Moreso than any Christian would be, likely because of our moral compass, but also a lot of notions that we have hard-wired into our systems after years of warming pews. I was surprised at his depth of commitment to the project.

- the author seemed to genuinely enjoy the experience (with a few bumps along the way) but maintained his objective viewpoint.

- the author easily slid back to his previous world view, sadly very little changed after such an intense encounter with God. It reminds me just how hard Satan is working to drag our very souls away and how generally oblivious we seem to be to his efforts. We are so quickly washed away in the cares of this world that we don't even realize we've moved until one day we look up and notice the distance we've put between ourselves and God.

- the hatred and misunderstand of numerous students and faculty. How is it that God is love, and God is in us, yet we continually fall so short of love? It breaks my heart.

- the author pointed out numerous times how the school and it's faculty and it's students were so consumed with the 'legal' battles (pro-life, homosexual marriage, creationism vs. evolution) but had so little care about the general condition of the world. At this point, I wanted to tap the author on the shoulder and tell him he visited the wrong evangelical school! I beleive that isn't the case for most churches. We care about the rest of the world. Why, the Assemblies of God does so much through Speed the Light, Light for the Lost, Convoy of Hope, and BGMC, just to name a few. Yes, we are concerned about the moral degradation of our country, of our planet, but we want to meet real, physical needs, don't we??

- some of the Christians he encountered were consumed with hate. I kept thinking, if these people are filled with the love of Christ, where is their joy? Such a poor representation of what Jesus did for us. I understand hating sin. But we have to love the sinner. How do we adequately translate that into a sin-filled world? Jesus hung out with sinners, but (though tempted with every sin we are) he never succumbed to sin. How did Jesus love sinners without excusing their sin? And almost as important, how can I do the same? I've spent a lot of time thinking about this (even before my journey into this book) and I've come up with two intertwining theories. 1.) Jesus is pure. So pure. Pure like nothing you or I have ever encountered. He is everything good and right and just all wrapped up into a person. We see snippets of it in the Bible (as best as a person can describe it) and I've personally felt glimpses of His glory during worship and quiet times, but have certainly never beheld His glory in it's fullness. I think His purity in real life was a thing to behold and sinners, being around this holy great light, well, it put their lives in perspective and they immediately felt a deep desire to clean up their act just by being near him. When you are around someone who is holy, who is just and kind and good, it pushes you towards holiness. 2.) Jesus was a man (a God-in-flesh man) but he was thoroughly devoted to His quiet time. He spent time with the Lord on a regular basis, consulted Him through out the day. He knew His scripture backwards and forwards (the Word became flesh) so He lived it day in and day out.

I'm not perfect. Oh, so far from it. But I have a deep desire to be oh-so-close to Jesus and to witness His purity, His glory, and to try to live up to His plans for my life. I know that by spending time in His Word I will better absorb His plans for my life, and learn how to react how He would react, speak as He would speak, love as He would love. The only way I can learn to love the sinner and not the sin is to learn to love like Jesus. No wonder so few Christians have achieved it. Such devotion it will take. What a mighty task, but what a perfect endeavor. I think, as the church, we need to really think this through, and pray for God to show us how to love people to Him, rather than beat them over the head with our seemingly strange beliefs and 'thou shalls and thou shall nots'. We need to love people where they are at, and ask God to work out the rest in our hearts.

Back to the book...

I guess I really enjoyed hearing what an outsider thought of the church. I'd like to think if he had visited my church, he'd felt differently. But I could definitely see where he was getting some of his information. Churches are lead by people, and people, by definition of humanity, are sinners. Sadly, it's obvious when you walk through the doors that people have agendas and lots of the time it's not for God's glory.

I encourage you to read this book. Like I said, it was definitely thought-provoking.

Total aside... My mom comes tomorrow evening! Sarah's getting better. And I'm really missing theLOFT tonight.

Ok, time to go do my Bible study. Thanks for reading.

Photo 365, Photo #17

Eli and Sarah received good grade cards from Grammy Ginny. They were so cute! Definitely a highlight in their day.

Photo 365, Photo #16

sickie.

spent all of yesterday tending to this sweet little bundle of germs. thus the failed post. but I did take this photo on the 26th. Sad that it's not of E. His birthday slid by all too quickly with the mess of Sarah having a major stomach bug and an ear infection. So thankful that we had already celebrated his party on Saturday.

How I Spent the Day 9 Years Ago.

not pretty, I know. but he's worth every minute of that 23 hours of labor, 2 and 1/2 hours of pushing, and then emergency c-section. This kiddo is pretty stellar.

The Great Fall.

accidently dropped my ring on Saturday morning while I was transferring it from it's dish to my finger. Hit the bathroom floor (ceramic tile) and I knew I was in trouble. The head was bent massively, and one prong was bent clean off the corner of the stone. Nearly had heart failure thinking it was chipped. This ring has survived so much over the past 12 years, it's definitely my most precious possession. Long story short, my garage sale proceeds covered the repair and I'm delighted to have it back on my finger. This is the verse that is inscribed on our bands. (fun practice photography)

Photo 365, Photo #15

family wrestling. I had joined in too, but took a break to grab the camera. good times. :)

9 Years Ago This Evening...

I was doing everything I could to prepare to be a mom for the first time... ha ha, like you can prepare for that! I thought we'd wake up in the morning and have a baby. ha ha, Eli wasn't born until the 26th. Rob and I prayed that I'd go into labor on my own that night rather than being induced in the morning... didn't happen, and oh my the agony we endured in the next 48 hours. But thankfully, that is not the end of our story. Eli did come, 3 weeks late, and wonderful and amazing ever since. More pictures to come. :)

Photo 365, Photo #14

Two weeks already! It's flown by and I've not run out of things to photograph! If anything, I've had a tough time narrowing it down to just one photo each day. :)

About today's photo... Hard to believe I've been holding this hand for 13 years now. I never want to let go.

Photo 365, Photo #13

So many good ones to choose from today. Really enjoying this personal challenge. I'm thinking it will be neat to look back at the end of the year and see growth!

Birthday Happenings...

Eli turns nine on Tuesday. (oh dear, I know) And today we hosted a party for him and 6 of his school chums. They were all so cute! We had quite the time. Video games, pizza, chocolate cake, and lots and lots of laughter. Such a neat group of kids in his class. Here's some photos to take you through the afternoon.

E & S in front of his big birthday sign. Sare was extremely jealous and wants her own sign for her birthday. I will, and it will be all pink and fabulous. I still need to make a banner and streamer set for her annual birthday bash too. Last year we did Schlitterbahn, so no big party at home. We'll make it right this year. I had so much fun getting out and putting up Eli's birthday banners and stuff.

Eli wanted me to to take a photo of his shirt. I look at this pic and can't help but think how grown up he looks! (and yes, I cut off his head purposely)

And I love this picture of Eli, especially with the angled 'happy birthday' out of focus in the background. I love that I'm learning to get the photo in my head right first, and then tell my camera how to make it happen. So good to be growing!

Daddy took this photo of the 3 of us...

Eli with his pals from school.

blowing out the candles...

singing 'Happy Birthday'.

So fun seeing all these happy kiddos in our kitchen.

A sweet birthday pic with old mom. :)

Loved how they all huddled in around each other.

And you've got to click on this photo to read what exactly the shirt says. It's hilarious!

Well, that's all for now. Other than dropping my diamond ring on the bathroom floor and obliterating the head, it's been a good one. But $70 later it should be good as new and we had a 9th birthday to remember! blessings!

Photo 365, Photo #12

Flowers from my sweet friend Monique. Made my day!

A Few Moments

before the kiddos storm through the door...

It's been a good (exhausting) day. I had a garage sale this morning, in efforts to clean out my garage to return our car to it's rightful space. :) Also, thought the extra money would be nice to have when Mom gets here a week from yesterday. Looking forward to that! So, I spent about an hour marking things that I had been collecting in the garage for the past 6 months, then spent from 8am to noon today in my front yard. Between sales I finished raking and bagging the leaves on our lawn. I also finished up "Waiting for Morning" by Karen Kingsbury for February's book club meeting at Trinity. (good book!)

At noon I packed up the last box of leftovers and hauled it to the curb, hoping that stuff will disappear on it's own. And I just peeked outside and it did! yay! Then I came in for some lunch and settled in on cleaning/decluttering/organizing. A never-ending task, it seems. I'm trying to get my home in order before Mom's visit. Not that she'll care, it's just a really good excuse. Plus, we are hosting Eli's 9th birthday party tomorrow. Oh dear. :) I did get the kitchen floor mopped, the cake made (still needs to be frosted) and some cards ready for the mail. There's still so much to be done though. I'm working off a huge list of household 'to-dos'. ATP is pretty slow this time of year, except for orders, so I'm trying to catch up on all the housework and maintenance I ignored over the holiday season. Rob's been a big help so far too. We did major yard work yesterday, cleaning out all the flowerbeds and remulching.

So, that's about it for now. I just needed to sit down and give my back a break. My body is talking to me quite a bit after yesterday's and today's yard work! :)

Now to share a few scrapbook pages with you. Lori and I scrapped for an hour last night while Rob was at worship practice...

This photo is from our very first Rodeo Sunday back in 2008. This year will be our third! (next month already!)

This page I had started last week with the girls at scrapbooking, but the stitching took forever so I just finished it a couple days ago..

And this one is my favorite of the day. It has the place of honor on the fridge. Printed up these fun 'photo strips' in Photoshop. Loved the christmas tree transparency and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it as soon as I found it. Oh, I just remember I was going to put some stickles on it, I'll have to go back and add that.

Well, that's it for now. You know I'll be posting photos tomorrow, big day for my almost 9 year old! His actual birthday is Tuesday, but you can't hardly party on a Tuesday, now can you?

Dream

(I actually had this dream way back in January, but it's ok to share it now. I've got a couple like that to go back and share now that our life makes a bit more sense. It's so cool to see God's provision and protection throughout the process He's been taking us through)

I had the coolest dream as I was waking up this morning. It literally happened in the 10 minutes after I hit the snooze button. (I almost missed it, for once sleeping in a bit paid off!)

Rob and I were driving on a highway. It was very clear in my dream that it was Texas, very solid in my spirit. But it looked like 540 in Arkansas, specifically between Fort Smith and Springdale. The road was very curvy and had a lot of steep ups and downs. If you are at all familiar with that stretch of highway, it is very beautiful, but can be very dangerous when it's wet or icy. There are huge 100-200 foot drop offs that are unprotected by any kind of guard rail. Every time we drive 540 I am in awe of it's beauty and in terror of it's potential to kill. The road in my dream was the same way, and it was this time of year.

Apparently it had rained, but instead of rain, it had rained sand bags (huge, 40lb Mulch looking type sand bags). That sounds bad, but the sand bags had settled in to perfect formation on the sides of the road as though they had been stacked there proficiently by the Corps of Engineers or something. The result was that this normally extremely dangerous road was now more safe than it had ever been before. I just felt God's hand of protection so vividly!!

Rob and I are facing some new challenges in our life, specifically in Texas. We are entering what could definitely be perceived as dangerous territory, where there are normally giant unprotected areas of the road, but I felt like this dream really said that God had gone before us and supernaturally fortified the dangerous areas, all we need to do is trust and drive!!

Random Questions... (mostly about scrapping)

(took this pic on Monday, told you it was a good day for photos! more to come!)

scrapbook size 12x12

camera Nikon D90, Nikon d40x, Canon IS3

music folk, worship, indie, pop, Relient K, and lately Owl City is my constant companion.

work space my 6 square feet around my Mac, at a tiny vintage student desk with a very worn coat of blue paint.

style vintage mixed with trendy new. I like big flowers, scallops, attention to detail... Lately have really enjoyed pairing a lovely cardigan and pearls with my Converse. :)

1 or 2 pages usually one, but sometimes I merge over in to two.

color preference I love color. Life needs more color. But I tend to lean towards bright green and bright blue. And red is always good too.

favorite product type total patterned paper horse. And mono-multi glue. boo-hoo on Hobby Lobby for not carrying it any more!

childhood ambition lawyer. can't you see that??

fondest memory the ones we'll make tomorrow. :) I have a good life, and I love to capture it, with my camera and in my scrapbook.

soundtrack My iPod... I listen to music constantly. I usually have a current fave's type list made and update it completely every 6 months or so.

retreat definitely our home. It's gotten so cozy over the past 2 and half years.

wildest dream being a rock star photographer! traveling the globe photographing missionaries in their environments. Helping share their stories.

proudest moment watching Rob step up for Ordination last April.

biggest challenge trusting God. every day.

alarm clock 6 stinking am. But I usually snooze it once or twice.

perfect day scrapbooking, photographing, spending time with my hubby, my kiddos, and my friends.

first job worst waitress of all time at a tiny diner in Cushing.

indulgence pedicures. I so dream of the day when we can afford them on a regular basis. Feet are so nasty!

last purchase groceries for Saturday's birthday party and black spray paint. LOL.

favorite movie Steel Magnolias. Followed closely by PS I Love You.

inspiration so many talented photographers, like Tara Whitney... twopeasinabucket.com, my beautiful (insane and funny) children.

my life my Lord, my hubby, our kiddos, photography, ministry, creating, being, remembering, breathing, trusting.

Photo 365, Photo #11

These little guys are the party favors for Saturday's big birthday bash. :) So excited for my little boy to turn 9!!

Photo 365, Photo #10

loading the car for Purple Heart donation. getting ready for a garage sale over the weekend, too.

Photo 365, Photo #9

The family that plays together stays together. :)

Some Scrapbook Pages and a Promise

Such a beautiful day today! And I've already started a post, but need to weed through a few photos for you before I finish it and post it. But, these scrapbook pages require no post-processing, so I'll go ahead and share those real quick...

Here's the birthday card for a certain young man's special day... (he has a thing for robots)

And this was inspired by an ap in FB that I never could get to work right, so I spent way too much time pulling a bunch of fun status updates from the past year. What a great history of the year! Might have to make this an annual page. :)

Gotta love a snowfall page. Still in awe of our second snowfall here in South Texas..

Then there is my insanely complicated, drawn out, labor intensive advent calendar type page, containing 25 doors revealing 25 things I love about Christmas. I had so much fun doing this page!!

My favorite door is number 25, of course! You've got to love a paper pieced nativity! (even if Joseph accidently got a bald spot! hey, a pregnant virgin fiance is enough to give anyone premature hair loss!)

I did wind up adding some stickles to the roof top and snowy landscape, just to add a bit of demension to the house itself. Turned out so cute! My mom (the queen of pop-up pages) will be very proud!

And this page features a vintage photo of our wedding. The Hamble scroll paper was just perfect for it, especially offset with the grey cardstock. Hey Lori, I used cardstock! :) Amazing what cleaning out your stash will do for your scraplife!

This page was my favorite of the evening. You all know how addicted I am to this song lately (it's constantly in my head) and I thought it went perfect with these pictures. I actually watercolored the house (it's a mess on the reverse side) but noticed after it was dry how cool the threads turned out and wound up using it this way instead! Had to add the fun people too, of course.

Photo 365, Photo #8

enjoyed a lovely day with my family, filled with lots of photo opportunities... Be watching my ATP blog for additional portraits. We sure had fun!

Another Random Sunday

anyone notice how I've been blogging a lot more consistently lately? Isn't it fun? I had been realizing how poor my blogging skills had been and really missing the chance to reflect. I also keep a prayer journal, and haven't been neglecting that, but this is more random, fun things than my private notebook.

I think the Photo 365 has been a really good motivator. Not just with blogging, I'm picking up a camera (one of three) a lot more often in the day, and I feel like our life story isn't slipping away as badly lately. Besides, I have 10G of storage on blogger now, I may as well use it! :)

Today was kind of a crazy Sunday. The alarm went off at six and I was just waking up to some United worship music when my phone went off. Linda was calling me to let us know that Pastor wasn't feeling well and that we needed to make arrangements to fill in for him this morning. I hung up with her, and (before we even got out of bed) started discussing options with Rob. My first reaction was that Rob should preach, but I have a tendency to overachieve and push Rob towards that myself. He hates doing things last minute and being put on the spot. So I held my tongue and gave him a chance to think it through himself...

He rapidly concluded that he really wanted to speak this morning, felt like God was even leading him on Friday in that direction. (isn't God good?) So that left him with about 20 minutes to prepare before he had about 20 to get dressed and ready for his 7:30 ride to worship practice. Brother Herb was gracious to fill in on leading worship at the last minute, so everything went off without a hitch. I texted a few of my close friends and family to pray for Rob because I knew he was nervous, he's only spoken in 'big church' about 3 times before at Trinity. He did fantastic. I was super proud of him, of course. It is my job to be his cheerleader, you know.

After church we had our first SMAC (Sunday McDonalds After Church) with our teenagers, and that was really fun. The idea is that we just all meet at a common place for lunch, once a month. Our students seemed to enjoy it. Then we went home for a nap, got up in time to clean up the house and prepare for youth lifegroup.

As we we were preparing I noticed this conversation happening in the living room.. One of those neat teaching moments. I quickly grabbed my camera, took the shot, and the moment was gone. Made me realize two things; 1.) that our living lighting is absolutely atrocious and I really need to install some additional lights if I want to continue to take photos without the flash or the tripod. (I love natural light) and 2.) that I need to be thinking faster in manual. This photo 365 is such a good ignitor for me! So, it's fuzzy, but I still caught the essence of the moment and I'm glad for the effort!

So tonight we played Apples to Apples, Sequence and Uno in different groups tonight and the food was yummy. All in all, it was a wonderful Sunday and I can't help but feel like we both grew quite a bit in the process of today. God is so good!!

Also, I realized earlier this evening that Rob and I met 13 years ago yesterday at an InterVarsity meeting at Morningside College. I had no idea that my life was going to change direction so suddenly and so perfectly. It's amazing to me how thirteen years have flown by and how he's still my absolute favorite.

PS - isn't this a beautiful sunset?? One of our students took it this evening...

PSS - I have a whole bunch of pages to take pictures of and post for you tomorrow. Hoping to maybe scrapbook again? And looking forward to the day with my whole family home and book club tomorrow night. good stuff.

Photo 365, Photo #7

a brilliant sunset this evening, just happened to be outside with a camera to enjoy it.

Photo 365, Photo #6

random. terrible photo, brought my smaller nikon and my slow kit lens (realizing just how stinky it is for indoor non-flash photography) but could not resist this photo of my all-time favorite Barbie doll from my childhood. Anybody have one of these?

(oh, and the new packaging just makes me feel OLD)

Photo 365, Photo #5

Guess what time it was when I realized I hadn't taken a photo yet yesterday? (ha ha) Had a blast scrapbooking, and didn't want to miss out on my daily challenge. Us gals were far past pretty at that point in the evening. I did manage to finish 5 and 1/2 pages, plus a card, so that's cool!

Unearthing My Scrapbook Nook

This little laundry cupboard/scrapbook storage closet was getting pretty deep. Eventually you get to a point where you don't even know what you have anymore. (oh dear) But starting yesterday, and then working all day today, I've organized every last bit of it (and planned a bunch of pages in the process) As you can see, it actually got worse before it got better! You can see, I'm still working on my resolutions, this was part of #6. Not doing that great on ALL of them, but I figure I can tackle a few at a time.