This feels really good on her teeth. Yes she told me! :)
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Seven teeth!
Eight months old and this little girl has SEVEN teeth! Here are some pictures of them...
This feels really good on her teeth. Yes she told me! :)
This feels really good on her teeth. Yes she told me! :)
Wide Eyed
What a sweet little face! She is wide eyed here because she is waiting for the camera to flash again! :) Funny girl.Friday, February 20, 2009
Really Good Devotional I Read Today
Title: Have It Your Way--Or God's
When Lars and I lived in Georgia he took me one Saturday night to a placecalled "Swampland" in the little country town of Toomsboro. It compriseda barnlike eating place and a barnlike auditorium where there was a gospelsinging jamboree from four until midnight.
As we sat at a long table with a lot of people we didn't know, eating ourcatfish and hush puppies (there wasn't much else on the menu), we noticedan odd person standing by the fireplace. He was a kind of middle-agedhippie. He had long gray hair like a broom. He was wearing baggy patchedpants, a jacket with fringes (some of them on purpose and some justtatters), a pistol belt, and a hat that was so greasy Lars said it wouldburn for a week if it ever caught fire. Every now and then he gave thelogs on the fire a poke or two, but seemed to be otherwise unoccupied.
When the manager of the restaurant came by, table-hopping, we asked aboutthe local character.
"You mean old Rusty Russell there? You don't know Rusty Russell?"
We said no. We asked if he was the official fire-poker.
"Nope."
"What does he do?"
"Do? Don't do nothin'. Come with the place." The manager went on totell us a little more. Seems he was from Alabama originally. His olddaddy used to live with him, and when he died, Rusty wanted to bury himback home in Alabama. Dressed him up in his Sunday suit, put a Sunday haton his head, belted him into the front seat of his old Ford car, andheaded out of town.
''Health authorities caught up with him, though. It was summertime. Noway was they gonna let him drive that corpse outa state."
Old Rusty had a wife once, too. Next-door neighbor took a shine to 'erRusty goes over, says, 'See you like ma wife.'''
'Yup,' he says."
'Want 'er?' Rusty says."
'Yup,' he says."
'What'll you give me for 'er?'"
'Stove,' he says."
Old Rusty says 'I'll take it.'"
He did. Traded his wife for a wood stove. Good one, too. Rusty stilluses that stove, by golly. Got a good deal. Better'n the neighbor got, Ireckon."
We loved that story. We did not love the story we heard last week--threestories, in fact, depressingly familiar, of three ministers of the Gospelwho, like Rusty's neighbor, let their eyes wander to their neighbors'wives. All three liked what they saw next door (or, more accurately, inone of the pews of their churches) and, hearkening to current commercials("You can have it all," "Do yourself a favor," "Have it your way") optedout.
Among the processes accelerating the breakdown of human structures is theflooding of imagery, produced by the mass media, "sweeping us into achaotic and unassimilable whirlpool of influences," writes Dr. JamesHouston in I Believe in the Creator (Eerdmans, 1980). "We are overwhelmedby undigested data, with endlessly incomplete alternatives to every sphereof living."
Christians, encouraged by the example of Christian leaders everywhere,have begun to regard divorce as an option. There is nothing new aboutmarital difficulties. If a man who is a sinner chooses as a life partnera woman who is a sinner they will run into trouble of some sort, dependupon it. Paul was realistic about this in 1 Corinthians 7: "Those whomarry will have worldly troubles and I would spare you that."
Jill Briscoe says that she and her husband Stuart are incompatible. Shetold a whole audience this. "And we live with incompatible children andan incompatible dog and an incompatible cat." The point she makes is: when it comes right down to it, aren't all human beings incompatible? Ittakes grace for any of them to get along on an every-day-of-the-yearbasis. The apostle Peter, who was married, reminded us that a husband andwife are "heirs together of the grace of life." God knows our frame,remembers we're nothing but dust, and we need grace, lots of grace. ThisGod supplies--plenteous, sufficient, enough--to those willing to receive.
If we receive that grace with thanksgiving he will enable us to make thesacrifice of self without which no human relationship will work very well.The refusal of grace is like the refusal to put oil in an engine. Themachinery will break down. Prolonged friction between the parts willresult in the whole thing's grinding to a halt. When, for lack of gracein one or both partners, a marriage grinds to a halt, the "world," comingat us loud, clear, and without interruption via television and othermedia, persuades us that we have plenty of alternatives. The Church,always in dancer of pollution by the spirit of the world, begins to choosethe proffered alternatives in preference to grace, to replace "I believe"with "I feel.''
There is an Eternal Word which has been spoken. For thousands of yearsChristians have taken their stand on that Word, have driven into it allthe stakes of their faith and hope, believing it to be a liberating Word,a saving Word. They have arranged their lives within its clear andbounded context.
The trouble with television is that it has no context. We sit in ourliving rooms or stand, as I often do, dicing carrots in our kitchens withthe Sony on the counter. The program comes to us from New York orHollywood or Bydgoszcz or Virginia Beach. The set--a corner of an elegantliving room, a city street, a desk high in some skyscraper, or perhapsCypress Gardens or a "crystal" cathedral--seems fake even if it is real. It has nothing to do with us or with what is being spoken. There is nocontext which embraces both my life and theirs, or it is "the context ofno-context," as George W. S. Trow argued brilliantly in a New Yorkerarticle (November 17, 1980):
The work of television is to establish false contexts and to chronicle theunravelling of existing contexts; finally to establish the context ofno-context and to chronicle it....The New History was the record of theexpression of demographically significant preferences: the lunge ofdemography here as opposed to there....Nothing was judged, only counted. The preferences of the child carried as much weight as the preferences ofan adult, so the refining of preferences was subtracted from what it wasnecessary for a man to learn to do.
Divorce has become "demographically significant" among Christians. Sohave too many other things. It is because we have forgotten that ourcontext is the Kingdom of God, not the kingdom of this world (which is thekingdom of self). In the Kingdom of God the alternatives are notboundless, not so long as we live in this mortal coil. You can't have itall. You are not there to do yourself a favor. You may not have it yourway. You opted out of all that when you made up your mind to follow aMaster who himself had relinquished all rights, all equality with theFather, and his own will as well. You are called not to be served but toserve, and you can't serve two masters. You can't operate in two opposingkingdoms. These kingdoms are the alternatives. Settle it once for all. It is, quite simply, a life and-death choice. Pay no attention to what isdemographically significant.
I receive a good many letters from young people who are utterly at seaabout their life's choices college, career, marriage. They are faced withtoo many alternatives. The seeming limitlessness overwhelms, unsettles,often even paralyzes them. (Can I have marriage and a career? Can I havemarriage and a career and babies? Can I be really feminine and be aninitiator? Can I be really a man and not the head of my home?) Twentyyears ago they were faced with a whole cupboard full of packaged breakfastfoods and were asked by a well-meaning but unwise mother what they wantedfor breakfast. They didn't know. They have been going to McDonald's eversince, gobbling up those (how many billions is it now?) hamburgers with orwithout onion, with or without mustard, relish, catsup, everything. Theystill think they can have it all, and they still don't know what theywant. Why not stop bothering about what you want, I suggest to them. Find out what your Master wants.
The three ministers think they know. They married the wrong woman. Ayouthful mistake. They've grown apart now. The children will not be hurtif they ''handle" it properly, they say. They owe it to themselves totake this daring and creative step. God wants them to be happy. It's aleap and a risk and there's a price to pay, but look how liberating, howstretching, how redemptive. Why be threatened by traditional morality?Why be hung up? The other woman has understood and affirmed and fulfilledthem as the poor wife was never equipped to do an--a line from an old songreminds them--"to waste our lives would be a sin."
Twirl those television dials. Look, for a minute, at the suffering of theworld on the evening news. Twirl it off. Look at the beautiful people ifyou want to. There they are. You can be beautiful too. You can do whatthey do, go where they go. TWA will take you up, up and away. Delta isready when you are. Become a legend. Charm a holiday party. Enhanceyour fragrance image. Give to thyself. Wear the Mark of Success. Try everything. Experience all the thrills.
Now it may be the flower for me
Is this beneath my nose,
But how shall I tell unless I smell
The Carthaginian rose?
So wrote Edna St. Vincent Millay (Collected Lyrics, Washington SquarePress) decades ago. In the 1980s the possibilities seem even more endlessand enticing, the unreached corners of the world ever more reachable, thepleasures of sin more innocuous. In fact, we suspect, they are not evenluxuries. They have become, for the self-respecting man or woman,requirements. There is plenty of room on the road that leads to that kingdom, and manygo that way, but it is still true that the gate that leads to Life issmall and the road is narrow and those who find it are few. Copyright© 1989, by Elisabeth Elliotall rights reserved.
When Lars and I lived in Georgia he took me one Saturday night to a placecalled "Swampland" in the little country town of Toomsboro. It compriseda barnlike eating place and a barnlike auditorium where there was a gospelsinging jamboree from four until midnight.
As we sat at a long table with a lot of people we didn't know, eating ourcatfish and hush puppies (there wasn't much else on the menu), we noticedan odd person standing by the fireplace. He was a kind of middle-agedhippie. He had long gray hair like a broom. He was wearing baggy patchedpants, a jacket with fringes (some of them on purpose and some justtatters), a pistol belt, and a hat that was so greasy Lars said it wouldburn for a week if it ever caught fire. Every now and then he gave thelogs on the fire a poke or two, but seemed to be otherwise unoccupied.
When the manager of the restaurant came by, table-hopping, we asked aboutthe local character.
"You mean old Rusty Russell there? You don't know Rusty Russell?"
We said no. We asked if he was the official fire-poker.
"Nope."
"What does he do?"
"Do? Don't do nothin'. Come with the place." The manager went on totell us a little more. Seems he was from Alabama originally. His olddaddy used to live with him, and when he died, Rusty wanted to bury himback home in Alabama. Dressed him up in his Sunday suit, put a Sunday haton his head, belted him into the front seat of his old Ford car, andheaded out of town.
''Health authorities caught up with him, though. It was summertime. Noway was they gonna let him drive that corpse outa state."
Old Rusty had a wife once, too. Next-door neighbor took a shine to 'erRusty goes over, says, 'See you like ma wife.'''
'Yup,' he says."
'Want 'er?' Rusty says."
'Yup,' he says."
'What'll you give me for 'er?'"
'Stove,' he says."
Old Rusty says 'I'll take it.'"
He did. Traded his wife for a wood stove. Good one, too. Rusty stilluses that stove, by golly. Got a good deal. Better'n the neighbor got, Ireckon."
We loved that story. We did not love the story we heard last week--threestories, in fact, depressingly familiar, of three ministers of the Gospelwho, like Rusty's neighbor, let their eyes wander to their neighbors'wives. All three liked what they saw next door (or, more accurately, inone of the pews of their churches) and, hearkening to current commercials("You can have it all," "Do yourself a favor," "Have it your way") optedout.
Among the processes accelerating the breakdown of human structures is theflooding of imagery, produced by the mass media, "sweeping us into achaotic and unassimilable whirlpool of influences," writes Dr. JamesHouston in I Believe in the Creator (Eerdmans, 1980). "We are overwhelmedby undigested data, with endlessly incomplete alternatives to every sphereof living."
Christians, encouraged by the example of Christian leaders everywhere,have begun to regard divorce as an option. There is nothing new aboutmarital difficulties. If a man who is a sinner chooses as a life partnera woman who is a sinner they will run into trouble of some sort, dependupon it. Paul was realistic about this in 1 Corinthians 7: "Those whomarry will have worldly troubles and I would spare you that."
Jill Briscoe says that she and her husband Stuart are incompatible. Shetold a whole audience this. "And we live with incompatible children andan incompatible dog and an incompatible cat." The point she makes is: when it comes right down to it, aren't all human beings incompatible? Ittakes grace for any of them to get along on an every-day-of-the-yearbasis. The apostle Peter, who was married, reminded us that a husband andwife are "heirs together of the grace of life." God knows our frame,remembers we're nothing but dust, and we need grace, lots of grace. ThisGod supplies--plenteous, sufficient, enough--to those willing to receive.
If we receive that grace with thanksgiving he will enable us to make thesacrifice of self without which no human relationship will work very well.The refusal of grace is like the refusal to put oil in an engine. Themachinery will break down. Prolonged friction between the parts willresult in the whole thing's grinding to a halt. When, for lack of gracein one or both partners, a marriage grinds to a halt, the "world," comingat us loud, clear, and without interruption via television and othermedia, persuades us that we have plenty of alternatives. The Church,always in dancer of pollution by the spirit of the world, begins to choosethe proffered alternatives in preference to grace, to replace "I believe"with "I feel.''
There is an Eternal Word which has been spoken. For thousands of yearsChristians have taken their stand on that Word, have driven into it allthe stakes of their faith and hope, believing it to be a liberating Word,a saving Word. They have arranged their lives within its clear andbounded context.
The trouble with television is that it has no context. We sit in ourliving rooms or stand, as I often do, dicing carrots in our kitchens withthe Sony on the counter. The program comes to us from New York orHollywood or Bydgoszcz or Virginia Beach. The set--a corner of an elegantliving room, a city street, a desk high in some skyscraper, or perhapsCypress Gardens or a "crystal" cathedral--seems fake even if it is real. It has nothing to do with us or with what is being spoken. There is nocontext which embraces both my life and theirs, or it is "the context ofno-context," as George W. S. Trow argued brilliantly in a New Yorkerarticle (November 17, 1980):
The work of television is to establish false contexts and to chronicle theunravelling of existing contexts; finally to establish the context ofno-context and to chronicle it....The New History was the record of theexpression of demographically significant preferences: the lunge ofdemography here as opposed to there....Nothing was judged, only counted. The preferences of the child carried as much weight as the preferences ofan adult, so the refining of preferences was subtracted from what it wasnecessary for a man to learn to do.
Divorce has become "demographically significant" among Christians. Sohave too many other things. It is because we have forgotten that ourcontext is the Kingdom of God, not the kingdom of this world (which is thekingdom of self). In the Kingdom of God the alternatives are notboundless, not so long as we live in this mortal coil. You can't have itall. You are not there to do yourself a favor. You may not have it yourway. You opted out of all that when you made up your mind to follow aMaster who himself had relinquished all rights, all equality with theFather, and his own will as well. You are called not to be served but toserve, and you can't serve two masters. You can't operate in two opposingkingdoms. These kingdoms are the alternatives. Settle it once for all. It is, quite simply, a life and-death choice. Pay no attention to what isdemographically significant.
I receive a good many letters from young people who are utterly at seaabout their life's choices college, career, marriage. They are faced withtoo many alternatives. The seeming limitlessness overwhelms, unsettles,often even paralyzes them. (Can I have marriage and a career? Can I havemarriage and a career and babies? Can I be really feminine and be aninitiator? Can I be really a man and not the head of my home?) Twentyyears ago they were faced with a whole cupboard full of packaged breakfastfoods and were asked by a well-meaning but unwise mother what they wantedfor breakfast. They didn't know. They have been going to McDonald's eversince, gobbling up those (how many billions is it now?) hamburgers with orwithout onion, with or without mustard, relish, catsup, everything. Theystill think they can have it all, and they still don't know what theywant. Why not stop bothering about what you want, I suggest to them. Find out what your Master wants.
The three ministers think they know. They married the wrong woman. Ayouthful mistake. They've grown apart now. The children will not be hurtif they ''handle" it properly, they say. They owe it to themselves totake this daring and creative step. God wants them to be happy. It's aleap and a risk and there's a price to pay, but look how liberating, howstretching, how redemptive. Why be threatened by traditional morality?Why be hung up? The other woman has understood and affirmed and fulfilledthem as the poor wife was never equipped to do an--a line from an old songreminds them--"to waste our lives would be a sin."
Twirl those television dials. Look, for a minute, at the suffering of theworld on the evening news. Twirl it off. Look at the beautiful people ifyou want to. There they are. You can be beautiful too. You can do whatthey do, go where they go. TWA will take you up, up and away. Delta isready when you are. Become a legend. Charm a holiday party. Enhanceyour fragrance image. Give to thyself. Wear the Mark of Success. Try everything. Experience all the thrills.
Now it may be the flower for me
Is this beneath my nose,
But how shall I tell unless I smell
The Carthaginian rose?
So wrote Edna St. Vincent Millay (Collected Lyrics, Washington SquarePress) decades ago. In the 1980s the possibilities seem even more endlessand enticing, the unreached corners of the world ever more reachable, thepleasures of sin more innocuous. In fact, we suspect, they are not evenluxuries. They have become, for the self-respecting man or woman,requirements. There is plenty of room on the road that leads to that kingdom, and manygo that way, but it is still true that the gate that leads to Life issmall and the road is narrow and those who find it are few. Copyright© 1989, by Elisabeth Elliotall rights reserved.
Monday, February 16, 2009
I Am Here Really
It has been a while since my last post. I really do want to keep up with this, but i want to be able to use pictures along with my posts. I have a Canon Rebel which I love taking pictures with, but I have to go get the pictures developed and put on disc so I can put them on my computer, then I can use them in my blog. It is a process. I really want to get a digital SLR camera sometime. But for now, it is slow coming on the posts, or I will just have to settle for pictureless posts. :(
Anyway, just wanted to inform any of you who do read my page to hang in there. The posts are coming!
Anyway, just wanted to inform any of you who do read my page to hang in there. The posts are coming!
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Baby Talk
Madyson seems to say a few things...she said what sounds like "hi" and "ba". She will say "ba" more. She waves and goes"babababababa", so cute! But, I have to say, even cuter than that is what she said late last night for the first time, "Dadadada". We were so excited. SOOOO cute. She also said it in her sleep! I am not kidding. :) The only thing sweeter than that would be mamamamama. Don't we just love our own names? :)
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
What's New?
Recently Tim started a new job. He is still learning. He was told the first month is rough, but not to quit. He will catch on soon enough. He is a hard worker. All that to say daddy is not home with his little girl that much these days. He works long hours six days a week. But every time he comes home and Madyson is still awake he gets the biggest smiles out of her I see all day. She loves her daddy.Greetings!
Well here I go. I am bad at keeping up with these things, but I have decided to give blogging a chance. It's not starting out too easy. As I type now I am doing it one-handed, standing, holding Madyson as her seventh tooth breaks through her gums. Poor baby. Ok, I am back. I just put her down in her crib asleep. The Tylenol must have kicked in.
Actually, I am pretty excited about keeping up with this blog. Since becoming a mommy I have not had much of an outlet for creativity. I really enjoy writing. I have a lot to say, like most women, so it should come natural once I can get into the groove of doing it. :) I plan to tell you sweet stories about Madyson, recipes I try and we'll see what else. So there...my first post.
Actually, I am pretty excited about keeping up with this blog. Since becoming a mommy I have not had much of an outlet for creativity. I really enjoy writing. I have a lot to say, like most women, so it should come natural once I can get into the groove of doing it. :) I plan to tell you sweet stories about Madyson, recipes I try and we'll see what else. So there...my first post.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)