Am. So. Tired.

I think I've been party hopping for three days straight now! One included an overnight. Today was Boxing Day. If you don't know what that is, don't feel badly, I didn't either just two years ago, and now it is a new family tradition! It's great fun. I'm sure there will be more on that later, when I finally get to posting my pictures of the last few days. Things have just been too crazy to upload! And today, I had a really, really bad idea. I thought I'd go to the mall and check out a new store that cousin Kayla has been telling me about.

Cousin Kayla's quite cute. Often, when I see her, I want to know where she got her shirt, earrings, etc. She's been telling me about Forever 21 for awhile now. Apparently, Forever 21 is the new Target. Even, some say, better than Target. I didn't know how it could be true, but there was only one way to find out, and apparently it meant heading out to the mall on one of the worst possible days of the year, battling crowds and body odor and unusally warm temperatures, fighting traffic for half an hour just to find a parking space and then standing in line for thirty MORE minutes so that I could make my purchase. Yes, I have learned my lesson, and I will never again shop at the mall on December 26th. BUT, it turns out Forever 21 is the coolest! And I got a pretty nifty green turtleneck. So, thank you Kayla, for introducing me to a place that, despite the crowd, noise, mess and odor, made me very, very happy!

We leave in the morning for Kansas City to meet our new niece/cousin! We are so excited!!! We just hope that Micah, who must think life has just turned into one big party, does okay in the car after a week of exhaustion! I have a feeling he's going to have a lot of fun meeting his new cousin, and not only that, but seeing his second cousins as well. I can't wait to see them!

Baking Cinnamon Rolls

This morning, Micah and I decided to bake some cinnamon rolls. Micah pretty much did all of it, pouring everything in the bowl, stirring it, kneading the dough, and watching it bake. Am I glad I have a one year old! Now I can just sit around with my feet up all day!

Kneading was especially fun!

This does absolutely NO justice to the mess that was made. He was covered in flour from head to foot! I kept asking him to look at the camera and say, "Cheese," but as you can see, he couldn't pull his eyes away from the flour.





He only fell off the chair once! Mental note: get a stepping stool!

He's Faithful to the Faithless

This year, I'm attempting to read through my Bible in a year, thanks to encouragement from my wonderful Bible study leader, Janet. (She gave more than encouragement, but at Bible study two weeks ago she generously gave all of us a Daily Bible in Chronological Order! I couldn't wait to start mine, so I went ahead and gave myself a head start. I never have been able to follow through with this goal, but last summer I put it on my "30 things to do before I turn 30" list, and so now seems as good a time as ever!) It's really wonderful to read through the Old Testament again. I have learned so much about grace and forgiveness in recent years, and it is moving to read about it so plainly in the Old Testament, a period of time often affiliated only with law and judgement.Our God is a God of mercy and grace. He is now and He was in the Old Testament too! He's the same yesterday, today and forever. He never changes.

Today I read in Genesis 26, where Isaac lies to King Abimelech and tells him that Rebekah is his sister, not his wife. Of course he did this out of fear, not faith. And we all know where liars go, right? Like my seventh grade Spanish teacher said, "H-E -double hockey stick!" So then, what is the very next thing God does? I, for one, expected a chastisement of some sort. But I was so encouraged to find that God didn't define Isaac by his lack of faith. He didn't give him what his lack of faith deserved. Instead, God blesses Isaac (26:12).

I am so thankful that our God is One who does not love us or bless us conditionally, based on our faithfulness! Yes, we are sinners, but it is so freeing to come to the understanding that God loves us unwaveringly, even when our faith falters, even when we sin. How is this possible? Because in the end, it's not about me and how much faith or obedience I do or don't have. It's about the finished work of someone Other - someone who's faith did not falter - Jesus Christ. Miles J. Stanford probably says it better than I can:

Although we abide in the Lord Jesus as our position, we are ever aware of our condition in ourselves. We are concerned about the sinfulness of self, but no longer do we depend on improvement in that realm for our acceptance. We are resting in a position, in a Person who is fully and forever accepted by God, One in whom there is no improvement necessary or possible. We have exchanged unimprovable self for the perfect One..

What a safe and impregnable position is ours in Christ! "The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and the high tower" (Psalm 18:2). When the "accuser of the brethren" points his maligning finger at the self-life within, at our condition in ourselves, seeking to get us to question our acceptance, we are able to rest in our position and point to Christ. We are well aware of self's unacceptability, but we are much more aware of our acceptance in the Beloved. The enemy can never touch Him, and our "life is hid with Christ in God" (Col 3:3). Satan may be the counsel for the prosecution, but we have two Counsels for defense - an Advocate at the throne, and an Advocate within - to say nothing of the fact that the righteous Judge is our Father!

So this morning I was reminded that NOTHING, not even my own sinfulness or fear (which is the opposite of faith), can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ! It always brings to mind one of my favorite verses: "If we are faithless, He will remain faithful, for He cannot deny Himself." (2 Tim. 2:13)

It sure does make me feel lots of joy and peace on this coooold December day, don't you agree?

Studs

I was looking through old pictures and found this one. What a group of handsome men! Such studmuffins are the men in my family, I had to show them off. :)

If You Need a Laugh...

The 7 People You Meet in a Prayer Circle

I thought this was funny enough to laugh out loud! You might too. I can totally relate to at least six of these people!

Hope you're all having a wonderful day!

What Can I Say? He Likes Things Clean.

My carpet is the kind that hides a LOT, which is good (I guess), since my vacuum barely works. Sometimes I feel like I'm vacuuming "by hand" - which isn't fun, let me tell you! Thankfully, God gave me a little helper to lighten the load. For months now, Micah's been picking up little fuzzies, or bits of leaf, or whatever he can find on the carpet, and holding it up to me saying, "Eeewwww!" before throwing it in the trash can. The other day, he actually grabbed a tissue before picking up the fuzzy on the floor. You know, so that he wouldn't have to touch the fuzzy. Because that would just be gross.

His help doesn't just end there. The other day he ran up to me, got in my face, and with a worried expression in his big brown eyes, said, "Uh-oh." Needless to say, I was afraid, because that is usually not a good sign. Thankfully, I followed my scurrying one-year-old to nothing but an already dead fly lying on the carpet. The thing is, Micah didn't know it was already dead. I decided not to tell him. "Uh-oh," I said. Micah didn't wait any longer. He knew what to do. He ran off to his room to grab a very small, corduroy shoe, which was just precious in and of itself, and then he came back to the fly, and whacked it several times. Dead. Now he was sure of it. He led the way to the bathroom, where I grabbed a bit of toilet paper, and then he went back to the fly and picked it up with the tissue, ran back into the bathroom, tossed it in the toilet, and flushed. That boy has seen his mommy kill one too many spiders! (I can't wait until he actually CAN kill spiders for me!)

Anyway, another thing he helps me do is dust/clean. I use natural cleaners so that he can help me scrub, and the two of us have a good old time together wiping things down. My favorite part about it is how important and helpful I can tell he feels. (Those Colin eyes are very expressive!) The funny thing about it is how quickly his paper towel gets so dirty he feels he must throw it away. That's why in most of these pictures, it barely looks like he has any paper towel at all. I tear one up into several pieces so that it lasts a little while longer. Otherwise I'd have a trash can full of clean paper towels!

So, if you want to buy a Christmas present for Micah and you're not sure what to get him, I have a great idea: a toddler-sized vacuum cleaner! It will be sure to take a load off of both Micah and mommy's minds as the current one just doesn't seem to be doing the job.

Snow

Okay, this was the first real snow! Colin took the first picture from behind the screen door where it was warm and where I had baked chocolate chip cookies, but then he joined us outside.

Micah was in awe.




And below? This is Micah and Mommy's first attempt at a snowman. The snow was very dry. It looks like a pile of snow and sticks, which is what it was, but to Micah it was a "sno sno," (Micah's word for snowman), which is what matters.

So much fun!

The Ingredients to a Great Party...

Crab legs dipped in butter!

Aunt Nerna dipped in butter, jalapeno juice, and white wine (and because she was wearing black, you couldn't see a thing! She looked just as pretty as before!)

Long conversations with Grandpa...

More money...

A non-scary bank (this one was a railroad sign that actually made choo choo sounds and lit up!)

Three generations of Kelly and a Bartel...

A suspenseful kitty hunt...

(It was a hardcore hunt)



(Micah was afraid of the light on daddy's head)



Storytelling...




Cute couples listening...

Margaritas and tickling...

Enough handsome men to go around...

Playing with Grandma Jonna until way after bedtime...

But mostly?



Guy time.

Oops.

This morning Colin had a migraine (some of you are doing a double-take, right? It was his first.), and so I was quickly getting ready for church, trying to keep Micah quiet. However, Micah was more interested in, "Daddy? Daddy?" So I handed him my socks and said, "Micah, could you go put these in the hamper?" Really, I was grasping for straws here. I wanted Colin to get some sleep, and so I decided to take a leap of faith in an effort to get Micah out of the room for a few more seconds.

Micah helps me with the laundry several times a week, but we don't often speak the word "hamper" out loud; however, sometimes he surprises me. I do often ask him to throw things away, so naturally, he scurried off to the trash can to throw my socks away.

"No, Micah," I said. "The hamper. In the bathroom."

I saw the light go on in his head, and thought what a smart child is my son. He scurried down the hallway to the bathroom. Suddenly it hit me. I got up as fast as I could and I was running down the hallway, but not before I heard the dreaded sound. I was able to save one sock. And you probably caught on way before me that the other one was flushed down the toilet.

My excuse is that I only got two hours of sleep last night, thanks to the fact that two of my favorite people in the whole world were in need of me. I am just not on top of my game!

Since we have a septic tank, I guess it's time to call my landlord. Sigh.

(Thankfully, Colin is feeling much better now!)

The Three Bears

So precious to me! (Who can this blog possibly be of any interest to besides myself???)

Grace Abounds

Well folks, it's been a week of ups and downs. There has been so much to be thankful for, but also many reminders that we are sinners living in a broken and fallen world that groans out for redemption. Like Elisabeth Elliot says, if we had everything we wanted in this world, we wouldn't long for the world to come.

This year has been hard. My faith has been shaken. I've really struggled with sin. Even though I know that God has forgiven me, I haven't always felt forgiven. Though it's been difficult, I can see how it's also been good for me. God has loved me relentlessly. He has pursued me through it all, and I have found it is good to be broken, to really, really know my need for a Savior. To not just know about Christ's grace, but to ache for it. To live and breathe it every day!

And then, these last two weeks, I've had minor physical problems. Nothing serious (thankfully it has NOT been a big deal), but it has still been an inconvenience that has been uncomfortable, at times painful, and always disheartening. How badly I want to respond to these trials in strength, with faith, and yet, the truth? Mostly, if I wasn't trying to stifle the rising feeling of fear and anxiety over the worst-case-scenerios, I was troubled in my heart about the inconvenience another trip to the doctor was to my day. Am I ever thankful that God is faithful to the faithless!

Today as I was sitting in Barnes and Noble reading (a rare occurence nowadays), it all suddenly struck me as funny. On my table was a cookbook called Super Natural Cooking, with pictures of peas and brown rice and asparagus floating around on its cover, and in front of me was a half eaten piece of coffee cake and a latte. Ah yes, I thought. The story of my life. It's the constant struggle between who I want to be, and - alas - who I really am.

But open on the table was the passage of Scripture I was reading. There is a solution to this problem, and it is this: "You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the UNGODLY. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through Him! for if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through His life! Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." (Rom 5:6-11)

So today, on my way home, Micah and I sang, "This is the day that the Lord has made! Let us rejoice and be glad in it!" Yes, I am a sinner. Yes, I got stuck with a needle today. But like Micah says, I can still be "happy happy happy!" Because of God's grace I can gladly say with David,

"Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven,

whose sins are covered.

Blessed is the man

whose sin the Lord will never count against him!" (Psalm 32:1,2)

Too Cute!

If you haven't seen these on Brian's facebook, I just had to post a snippet here. You may not be able to tell right away, but Micah and Brian are trying to copy each other's facial expressions. I was in the other room not paying any attention whatsoever for most of this. They were having so much fun! I was hearing lots of laughter but it took me a long time to figure out why!
















That's one pretty amazing uncle if you ask me. Micah loves him! His "B."

Corn Anyone?

Okay, I got a little camera happy today. But when it's cold outside and there's not much to do, I usually just take a lot of pictures of Micah. It's always lots of fun!

Around naptime things got really quiet. Suddenly I wondered what Micah was doing. I searched the house, and had to look the living room over twice before I found this in the corner.





He was just sitting in the corner, eating a plate of corn. It was so funny! I hurried off to get Colin and the camera, and when I came back, he just looked at me, grinned really big, and said, "Cheese!" (Yes, we had been practicing!)

Money Money Money!

Grandma Charlene bought Micah a piggy bank, so we thought now was as good a time as any to teach our firstborn the value of saving his pennies.

"Micah, show me the money!"

Grandma almost didn't give the piggy bank to Micah because she was afraid it would make him cry. He thinks it's great. Am I the only grown up who thinks it's kind of scary?

"Micah, smile!"



"No, smile!"

Maybe next we'll work on saying "Cheese."

First Snow

Of course, we stayed cozy inside all day long. Maybe tomorrow we'll go out and play!