Idiot

Just as Jackson was finishing up his lunch (finally), he decided to call me an idiot. He didn't want to take a bite of his pineapples like I suggested and he very quitely said, "You're an idiot." I took him in his room and asked him to tell me what he just said. And he said that he didn't remember a couple of times. Then he picked up a pencil from his dresser and said, "I said that this pencil is great." Anyway, he finally admited that he did indeed call me an idiot and he got a nice little spanking.

I would like to believe that he's never heard that word from either of his parents, but I'm not sure that's the case. Phillip and I do say that on occasion, but not in front of Jack (or so I thought).

Phillip and I both thought the pencil comment was particularly clever of him. I didn't laugh when he said it but Phillip and I both laughed about it afterward.

He can think that I'm an idiot all he wants, but he better not ever say it to my face again.

Jeremiah

I've been reading in Jeremiah the last few days and there's lots of cool stuff in there. I started kind of at the end and now I'm trying to go back and start from the beginning. It's amazing to see the compassionate and merciful side of God. But I think it's also good to try to grasp God's wrath as well.

I don't think we should be too quick to forget or ignore that God punishes sin. That God hates sin. In my search to learn more about God's character, I've discovered that I'm drawn more to stories in the Old Testament than the New Testament for some reason. I'm drawn to the stories that remind me that God is not this nice neat little grandpa person that just wants to hug us up all the time. I need to be reminded that He expects and desires obedience. That He feels anger. And more importantly, that He feels anger with me. I don't think sweaty yelling and pulpit banging is the thing we need to do necessarily.

But we cannot ignore certain aspects of Christianity and God's character just because it is not comfortable or fun to talk about. He is entirely who He is whether we choose to talk about it or not.

"Do not fear, O Jacob my servant, for I am with you," declares the Lord. "Though I completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you, I will not completely destroy you. I will discipline you but only with justice; I will not let you go entirely unpunished."
-Jeremiah 46:28 NIV

"Have you not just called to me: 'My father, my friend from my youth, will you always be angry? Will your wrath continue forever?' This is how you talk, but you do all the evil you can." -Jeremiah 3;4-5 NIV

Check out these melons...I mean lemons!

Are these not the biggest lemons you've ever seen in your life?? A couple from our church grows these monsters in their yard. Thought I'd take a picture to demonstrate their size.

A girl can dream, can't she? A little lopsided, though.

New Stanley Baby

We went over to Chris and Pennie Stanley's house to see their new baby, Kennedy. Jack didn't seem terribly interested in the baby. When I asked Jack if he wanted to touch her he said , "No, I'm afraid she might bite me."

Step of Faith

After several months of thinking it over, Phillip and I have decided to get the adoption ball rolling. We've decided to go with the Dillon Adoption Agency and we hope to adopt a baby from South Korea. Before we mail out the initial paperwork, we want to feel as sure as we can that we're doing the right thing. We will have months of paperwork, questions, social worker visits, and who knows what else. From the time we mail out the initial application to the time we get our baby could be from 12 to 18 months. It's going to be exciting and also very stressful. I've started a journal to document the process and I hope to give it to our child someday when he or she is old enough to appreciate it's meaning. Please pray for us a we begin this new journey.

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my birthday. I am 28 years old today.

So, I know all of you are in a hurry to wish me a happy birthday. I'll let you get to it.

What a Beauty

I hope I look this good in about 100 years!

Meticulous

Jackson does things sometimes that make me wonder whose kid he really is. He's very particular about getting stuff on his hands. He only eats the icing off of cupcakes becuase he can do that without picking it up with his hands. He just sticks his face near the cupcake and carefully licks the icing off. He doesn't like using glue at school. The other day he really wanted to paint but quit after a few minutes because it was getting on his fingers.

He's extremely cautious when it comes to physical activities like climbing on things, jumping off of stuff,etc. But he is getting a little more adventurous. I'm sure part of that is our doing. It's difficult to let your first kid fall. We were almost always there holding his hands or making sure we would catch him if he fell.

He is also very patient and will stick with things much longer than most three year olds. He most certainly did not get that from me.

Usually when we give him candy, he lines it all out and counts it. I took a picture of this occurance today. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but he placed each Sweet Tart with the "S" side up. He likes to sort and group things according to color.

Phillip and I are somewhat disorganized people. We can tollerate a certain amount of disarray. Neither one of us are detail oriented people at all. We have to force ourselves to be organized and do things in a timely fashion.

Most of the time we just sit back and shake out heads at him. He just seems so funny and unusual to us. We are really enjoying this age. It will be interesting to see what kind of adult he becomes some day.

Picking up Forks

As Phillip said on his blog, last night some unnamed assailants forked our yard and wrapped our car with saran wrap. I deserved it, I suppose. Anyway, it was an amusing ending to a pretty crappy day. But today, Jack got out there and picked most of them up. He thought it was pretty cool. And if you ask him what we're going to do with the forks, he'll tell you that we're going to put them in somebody else's yard. He's not really sick anymore, by the way. I wouldn't have made him do that if he was. When we were almost done, one of the guilty forkers came and helped us pick the rest of them up.







The mailman was kind of confused by the whole thing.



They even stuck one right in the middle of an ant pile.

That's sick

Jackson is sick. I think this mess has been going around. Fever, vomiting, and.....other stuff. Right now he has a fever of about 101.5. He hasn't thrown up yet, but he's had the other stuff. Right now I'm just waiting for him to puke all over the couch. He's watching Napoleon Dynamite right now and laughing like crazy. But he doesn't want to eat or play. He's milking the fact that he's sick. He wanted me to feed him his dinner on the couch. He keeps grinning when I say things like, "Oh, my poor baby. He's so sick." It's pretty funny. But it won't be funny when he pukes. He said, "I'm ready for my sick to be done." Well put, little buddy.

So, anyway, I'm sure Phillip and I will have it in a few days. Yippeee!

Phillip told him to make a sick face. This is what we got.

Cheap Soup

Since I was a kid I've liked Campbell's Cream of Potato, Tomato, and even Cream of Chicken Soups. I like them less now than I did when I was younger but I still think they're just fine for a quick lunch. At H.E.B. a few days ago I noticed some new soup flavors that Campbell's has to offer. I picked up a can of Creamy Chicken Verde and thought I would try it. I wasn't expecting it to be very good but I wanted to taste it anyway to see if it would be worth using to cook with. And much to my surprise, it was quite good. I added some cheese and a little cilantro and ate it with crackers. I certainly wouldn't compare it to real soup that you would get at a restaurant or anything. But for $1.00, I think it's totally worth it. And it would probably be very good to cook with.

New Table

We got a new (used) table recently. It has been at Phillip's parent's house until the Christmas tree was out of the way and we could put it in our house. I really like it. it looks SO much better than the one we had. We passed our old table down to Phillip's brother, Josh. It actually looks like grown ups live here now. The chairs will need to be replaced in the next few months, but they're fine for now. They are a little too small for the table and are a little scratched up.
The doorway you see behind the table leads to the (always messy) playroom. We'll be putting in French doors there in a month or so....I hope. That will then be our bedroom and we will move the playroom to another room in the house. But anyway, that's our new table. And it's perfect for marbles games. Added bonus.