Okay now that we've had our laugh you have to see her real cuteness!

Pic 1. Flowers from Uncle Keith, Watch out Lisa! Keith gave Gabe a Winnie the Pooh and the next thing I have a picture of Keith giving Gabe was cigerettes! Today it's roses tomorrow its snuff in a little silver case! :)

Pic 2. Aren't those the biggest brown eyes you've ever seen?

Pic 3. And the sweetest lips?

Gonna EAT YOU UP!

Elizabeth Lane Does the Electric Slide

This is my precious niece Elizabeth Lane, yes her mother IS a hair dresser! NO she did not purposely make her hair look like this---ALL NATURE NO NURTURE! PRICELESS!

Don't worry David, We'll catch the baton

Sunday David Phillips Pastor at Christ Chapel Bible Church died on a slick and icy Texas road. Today I went to his memorial service. It is amazing how you can know something about someone but not KNOW it. I had a couple personal experiences with David's intense love for Jesus Christ. After the service I realize I was one in a thousand...the thousands that David touched with his greatest passion...his love for God. There will be a void for a time in this world because those who have been touched by David will need sometime to stop and realize that we need to continue the race where David left off. We have rested too long on David's excellent service to Christ and his "Well Done Good and Faithful Servant" is the gun shot for the leg of our race to take off. Living this side of heaven is a continual relay of being touched by God, often through others, and then passing that life altering touch on to those around us so they can run their own race. David was a master at touching off races. I've heard my gun shot, I've picked up my baton. David, I'll see you at the finish line.

China's Secret Weapon

I'm sure that we need to have a carefully planned foreign policy to deal with China. My conviction doesn't come from their immense population, their voracious consumption of oil or their non pro USA political stance. I'm convinced that China has a large secretly trained society ready for war. My proof? Have you ever tried to open a Barbie or Barbie product? If we could just train our border security people with the people who train the workers to secure a Barbie doll in its package we'd never have a unknown terrorist cross our borders again! I just tried to open a Barbie guitar. Not only was the box taped so well that I had to literally tear the box to pieces to get it out, but once I got the box open the guitar was so tied to the piece of cardboard with twisty ties I ruined my new manicure just trying to get it undone. I must admit having a 6 year old daughter I was prepared for this, but to my surprise there was an added hurdle to cross....the twisty ties were HOTGLUED! I guess my only consolation concerning China's perceived security superiority is that their intelligence seems to be as abysmally bad as ours because they have somehow come to the conclusion that the population segment most to be feared are the 5-8 yearold Barbie loving girl population.

ISSUES

Sometimes I feel worn out from caring about the "issues" in my friends lives. I wish I could have just one friend who had no "issues", who had a perfect life, perfect children, perfect health, perfect husband and perfect money. But then of course I would hate her! So maybe I do have such a friend I just don't know it because I hate her so much for having no "issues".

Seriously though can you imagine having a friend who didn't have some sort of hardship in their life? Would that mean God wasn't working on them? Wasn't refining or purifying them? How awful to have a friend that God didn't want to make more like Himself. A friend that God wasn't using difficult situations in her life to make her more compassionate, more forgiving, more thoughtful, more just or more loving. A friend left to follow every sinful inclination of her natural born heart.

So in a away I'm glad to be tired. It means my friends around me are fighting the good fight! And being exhausted must mean I am battling shoulder to shoulder with them! Thank God we can't battle beyond that which we are able and the shoulder next to mine and my friends can't fail.

Amen Sister!

"I would be most content if my children grew up to be the kind of people who think decorating consists mostly of building enough bookcases." - Ann Quindlen, "Enough Bookshelves," in The New York Times (Aug. 7, 1991)

Sweetness 

"Here Mom, it's for you" 

Julia with her "Pooh" and "'Lo" (Winnie the Pooh and Hello) 

I felt like supermom!

Last night I had one of those rare moments when I KNEW why I'm not a career woman and more of a housewife/mom than a professional. I'm not saying that if I was a full time working professional that this conversation wouldn't have happened but for me to have the time to "hang out" with my kids builds the relationships that makes my kids comfortable with having these kinds of conversations. Gabe had had a hard day at school. He was tired and his blood sugar probably wasn't at the right level and he was really feeling down. Gabe freaks out at night if I don't pray with him before he goes to sleep and last night he needed to "talk" before we prayed. We talked about how we as Christians can react when people are mean to us. He asked me if I had ever had friends be mean to me. I told him that as a child I had grown up in a very strict religious organization that meant my only friends to the age of 14 were contained in this exclusive religious group. At 14 my family left the organization and all my friends except one that had already left refused to speak to or have any contact with me. I told him that I had learned a couple of things. One that Jesus is always with you and always your friend. I told him that Jesus says that he loves us and that he says we are worthwhile people therefore what others say although hurtful isn't the truth. I told him that he needed to remember that his friends weren't perfect and he needed to forgive them. I said you know, "God promises that once you've asked Him into your heart he will work on you for your entire life to make you more like Him." I said, "God is not going to let your friends continue to do mean things like call you names for their entire lives. He will be faithful to show them that their actions are wrong and they will someday be sorry they treated you that way. But you also need to remember that God forgave you your sins and hurtful actions before you ever asked him to so you should forgive your friends now even if they don't tell you they are sorry." There is nothing like being able to be there and speak truth and character building lessons into your child at the exact moment when they are open and vunerable to such lessons. I pray that he will remember this things later when the hurts from friends can go much deeper than name calling and athletic ablility put downs. I want my children to be sensative to others but have a strenght of self confidence that comes from their value in God not a false puffed up self importance or a bad self image that comes from the lies of this world. I realize that most of the times that I feel like I'm doing something right isn't when "I" have got it right it is the rare times I'm really allowing God to speak through me and not letting "ME" get in the way.

I'm feelin hip, I'm feelin' cool

I've got my new coffee mug! BRUGO to be exact! "The perfect degree of taste" I ordered these three weeks before Christmas, due to them being featured on Good Morning America I didn't get it till today! Now I'm hip, now I'm cool! I don't need a New Year's Resolution, I've got BRUGO! HA
http://www.brugomug.com/

Bloggers are annoying!

I almost deleted my blog yesterday...I still might do it! When I log on to www.blogger.com and before I put in my username and password there is a randomly scrolling list of the most recently updated blogs. You can click on any of them and see what other people are posting...OH MY GOSH DO PEOPLE GET ANNOYING! Blogs seem to be the soap boxes of people that you would run like crazy from if you saw them anywhere within 100 yards! I guess it's easy to be bigoted and closed minded with an audience that you assume agrees with you. I guess only my friends are reading my blog, but who knows? All that to say, I LOVE my friends blogs, I check them a couple of times a day, makes me wish they'd post more (Carrie, Kellie, Kyrstin, Julie, anyone else out there? Marie under an assumed name? HA) they aren't remotely annoying. So if anyone out there thinks I'm starting to get too one sided in my posting let me know! (maybe for the first notice discreetly in an email instead of posted as a comment on my blog, if I don't listen then have at it) By the way that invitation was for friends only. If you are randomly reading this blog and don't like it....GO SOME WHERE ELSE!

PsychoBaby here! Julia tried to kill herself three times today by: 1. opening the car door as we went down the highway, 2.falling down the stairs (she's been doing stairs forever this is a freak thing), and 3. falling over a pillow as she tried to bring me a jar of peanut butter and a steak knife pointed up! AHHHH Here goes my hope of having one calm child! 

Just because

I'm posting today out of a sense of obligation...or maybe its just avoiding other stuff I need to be doing. I'm tired today, didn't sleep good last night, had lots of weird dreams and kept waking up worried I was oversleeping cause Gabe and Emma went back to school today. They were so excited and bouncing off the walls, bad mix with an over tired grouchy mom! I threatened 'em within an inch of their lives (or so they thought, no friends over and no PS2) if they came home with reports that they were not well behaved today! Julia just finally went down for a nap and I'm trying to decide between competing priorities 1. TAKE A NAP, 2. DO some not urgent but necessary work for my job, 3.Wash my hair. I'm leaning very hard towards #1!-Maybe just 30 minutes. Then I can still do 2 and 3.

Gee what a boring post!

Pssst...its a secret....

I worked out today....FOR AN HOUR! I'm sure this is the surefire way to kill any hope of a good New Years resolution! 1. Tell someone what your resolution is...garrenteed way to make sure you don't keep it up for more than a week; 2. Keep it on January 1st!...probably means I won't work out again for another 365 days! I pretty much make it a habit NOT to make any New Years Resolutions cause I'm not too good at sticking with anything...except Ray, and I still consider that a major miracle...the longest I'd dated anyone before Ray was 3 months...now I've been married 12 years!!!!...ooops I hope I didn't just jinx myself! Anyway I'm not sure what my resolution is but working out on January 1st sure looks suspicious! Anyone out there care to share their Resolutions or Nonresolutions? I promise not to hold it against you if you never keep it!

Gabe exploring caves in Missouri over Thanksgiving 

My cutie pie...growin up so fast! 

Me and my cyclin' dude. 

Me and my girls, Emma and Julia 12/26/2005 

I can tell you the meaning of Christmas Charlie Brown

I hate to admit it but I actually got weepy watching the Peanuts Christmas cartoon today...I could blame it on the fact that I've gone three nights in a row without sleep (Thursday night me with the stomach virus, Friday night Ray with the stomach virus, and Saturday night Emma, Today is Sunday...), but really I love Linus and his amazing ability to take a group of flaky people with whacked priorities and stand up in front of them and say out loud what really is important....a babe wrapped in swaddeling clothes and lying in a manger and angles saying "I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all people; for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord." I guess it is a sign of my times that I can't even read those verses in Luke 2 with out hearing a lisp (Linus' that is). Same as I can't read half of the Bible without breaking into Veggie Tales songs! Witshing You and Yourths a Very Merry Christhmis!