Playing at the Castle

We tried a few times to get a cute picture but were faced with too many distractions.
Helena looked away just as the picture finally took but I promise you, about a second before they looked adorable! And yes, that is a French braid in her hair, my baby has a French braid. How did we get this far?

Playing hard!

Ophelia took a break to introduce a new friend to us when we snapped the picture of her. She had been playing hard after a day of being a cow girl at school for the Rodeo. Ophelia doesn't usually get to go to the castle because of school so this was a nice treat for her.

Daddy plays too

Actually, he's working here but he looks so cute. During the week, when Jeremy's working I will sometimes take Lavinia and Helena here to the mall and site there with the PowerBook and write, it's easier there than at home where the girls need me every two minutes.

She can't help it!

Any time the camera lens is pointing in her direction, even if it's off, she can't help herself, Lavinia has to strikes a pose! Making a silly face and showing off just comes naturally to Lavinia.

Helena- Almost 3!

Look at that smile! Can you believe that in a week she will be 3? In this picture, she just told the very strange looking statue a secret. I have no idea what the secret was, of course, it was a secret!

Playing at the Castle

We finally got everyone looking in the same direction but ended up with a little boy in the picture too! Ah well, what can you do?

Living for Comments

Ok, far more people read this blog than I thought and for the record, reading a blog and never commenting is not cool! Even if it's just a little half of a line comment, acknowledging that you read and enjoyed or hated the blog is a polite thing to do in the world of blogging. You don't have to do it every time but once in a while is nice. It's kind of strange when people mention in conversation that they saw something on the blog but then they never say "hi" there. Yes, I know, we are putting ourselves out there for just anybody to read and plenty of people we don't know come across our blog now and then but most of you know us and we'd like to hear from you too. It can be fun when comments start coming in and a real conversation gets started about a topic. It can also be fun just for you to share what's going on in your lives as well. You don't have to have a blogger account to comment, I have enabled "anonymous" comments- just leave your name at the bottom of your comment unless, for some reason, you don't want us to know who you are. I heard once that part of the point of blogging is to get comments and a bloggers day is made when somebody makes a comment on their site- I know this is true for us! Bloggers live for comments.

For those of you that do comment, thanks, we love it! And those of you that e-mail, we appreciate that too (try commenting once though...). The rest of you, give commenting a try and our communication can (kinda) become a two way street. Once you do it can be hard to stop!

Kicking Drills

She nailed her kicking drill, the best part of the test for her. Ophelia's kicks are fast and strong and steady. It was amazing to see her strength and speed- she's really not my little girl any more!

Board Break

Each belt test the testers have to break a board with one of their kicks. The lower belts (such as Ophelia) get a small cut in the back of their boards to be sure they can break them. Ophelia had a tough time focusing on the center of the board so they marked it with an "x" and she got it on the first try after that.

The Form

Unfortunately I didn't get a good picture of her form (I'm having camera problems) but here she is getting ready to do her form. She had a rough time at first and had to start over when she got distracted by Helena but she did great the second time through!

Getting the Stripe

The hard part is over! She broke her board and got through her form and now she gets her green stripe for all her work!

The Orange Belt Green Stripe

The new orange belt green stripe! After the test and the belt ceremony the new belts got to do some kicks and punches.

"Rainbowly"

Lavinia and Jeremy just explored a rainbow- in our garage. Jeremy and I are sitting inside working and Lavinia came in and announced: "The garage is rainbowly! Come look!" Confused, Jeremy and I looked at each other while Lavinia continued with her bizarre announcement. Jeremy went with Lavinia to investigate and sure enough, on the ceiling of our garage were 3 short rainbows cast there by the sun's reflection off a bicycle rim, plus a rainbow on the wall. Rainbows in the garage- it's a good day.

What Would You Say? Part 2

So the conversation didn’t really do what I hoped it would but here’s my reply now. I wrote it a little over a week ago but wanted to wait. Here it is:

Anonymous, I've started replying to your comment twice but life kept happening... sorry about that.

I think this is an interesting question but one I don't think I really have an answer for because I don't believe that I can convince anyone to turn to Christ at least, not with words. The truth is, cliché though it may be, talk is cheap. I certainly believe that people can and are motivated through the written (and spoken) word and God uses a variety of tools to draw people to Him but I don’t believe it’s my job to convince anyone to believe anything but rather what the Spirit does in a person that draws them to Christ. The dangers that surround trying to convince someone to turn to Christ is that our tone can easily become arrogant and condescending, lacking in love and who wants that?

My desire would be to have a relationship with this person if it was someone I could have a relationship with- which would of course require more contact than one post could facilitate. But here’s the thing, I reject the idea of “friendship evangelism” even after all my years of being indoctrinated with this method of evangelism. If I began a relationship with this person there would be something other than me wanting to convince them of anything, we would have to share life on some level. My faith would never be a secret, but I wouldn’t be trying to manipulate conversations to not-so-subtly point out how they need God. I would seek to be in genuine relationship with this person, no hidden agenda. I do however believe in "worship evangelism" and always be striving to live a life of worship- no apologies.

If, hypothetically speaking, I could only make one post to this person and not knowing the context of the post or how I even came to this person’s blog, I would do my best to avoid clichés and “preaching” and instead try to be open to them and not act like I have all the answers (because I certainly don’t), speaking with love and genuine concern. As for anything beyond hoping to develop a relationship, I’ll leave that to God.

The Inner Superhero

Those of you that knew me when I was little will really appreciate this. The rest of you may be surprised (I was) with my results- I even took it twice to be sure. Jeremy's results are posted below- he took it twice and the first time he was superman (didn't really seem to fit... I think he's super but I agree, that just didn't really seem to be him). I never do these things though I guess I can't say that now. Let me know (if you end up doing this silly test) what you end up being!

Jessica Your results:
You are Wonder Woman

Wonder Woman 80% Iron Man 65% Spider-Man 65% Hulk 65% Green Lantern 60% Supergirl 60% The Flash 60% Catwoman 55% Superman 50% Batman 45% Robin 35%

You are a beautiful princess with great strength of character.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Jeremy Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 75% Superman 70% The Flash 65% Batman 55% Supergirl 50% Iron Man 50% Green Lantern 50% Wonder Woman 45% Catwoman 45% Robin 40% Hulk 40%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

What would you say?

On my January 21 post "anonymous" left the comment below:

If you had one post, how would you convince someone to come back to Jesus? Assume that they know the story and the details, but have fallen off the path.

What do you guys think? What would you say?

Yes folks, I am pathetic!

Ha! Here it is, I confess to being pathetic. There are aspects of my life I consider to be pretty great: the girls (as if I get much credit for them- look at them they look just like their father! And God made them, I was just the incubator), uh... the girls... that's really it. There may be a few more things but I can't think of them.

But that's not the point of this strange rant. No, here's the point- I am pathetic. For a week I have been mentally noteing every evening that brings tonight closer. There's not any kind of great reason- no date with Jeremy (what's that anyway?), no special worship gathering, no major holiday, celebration, dinner, get together with friends, nothing. No, I've been waiting for Grey's Anatomy and the resolution to the explosive episode from last week. I've been waiting for this with nearly as much anticipation as I had in waiting for my new Macintosh PowerBook G4- almost as much. There are a few TV shows I regularly watch and since it first aired, Grey's is one of them. However, the shows I do watch, I really enjoy. And now, I share with you my pathetic list (what do the shows we watch have to say about the kind of people we are?) in no certain order: Grey's Anatomy; Lost (I have a love/hate relationship with this show); CSI (the original one- I don't really like the other ones but I will watch them once in a while but don't have the time); Scrubs (LOVE this show); Dancing with the Stars (once in a while and we watch with the girls because they love the dancing... I'm so embarrassed to admit that I watch this show!); Without a Trace (sometimes- it only kind of counts); The Late Show with David Letterman (if I'm not writing, reading or asleep by that point); House (sometimes- it's on at the same time as Scrubs and that comes first); Independent Lens (a PBS show of independent film makers- usually documentaries that are wonderful, social commentaries); (Extreme Makeover Home Edition (another one the girls really love) and some of the PBS morning line-up during the week my personal favorite is Between the Lions. I think that's it! Oh, and the 10 o'clock news once in a while but I usually get the news from the internet, not TV. Man, that's a lot of shows... yikes. That's like 10 hours of TV a week! We usually do tape them (no, we don't have TiVo- come on, we don't even have a cell phone!) so we can watch them at a more convenient time and can fast forward commercials and we don't watch reruns but still, that's a lot of TV. I see a conversation coming from this blog post...

Anyway, in other news: we got a new computer- a Macintosh 12" PowerBook G4! Oh, I said that already? Sorry, I'm just really excited! A little over two weeks ago we were surprised to find out I was pregnant and a day later I had a miscarriage- my fourth. It took more out of me than previous ones had and resting became a priority- I'm doing well emotionally, physically, and Spiritually and taken the time for myself to heal. Jeremy is working at Taft Street Coffee and building his studio (piano, guitar and bass lessons anyone?) and picking up French tutoring. He also made a great post on our other blog about how we come to communion, check it out. Ophelia is taking Spanish and enjoying mixing up French, English, Spanish and now making-up her own language and is reading "The Secret Garden" and loving it. Lavinia just started Tae Kwon Do and enjoys "kicking butt!" And Helena just learned how to say "chocolat" in French and is walking around chanting "MMMMMMM c'est bon! Chocolat! Chocolat! Chocolat!" Most certainly her father's daughter! Oh no and there's brownie mix all over her face! I better go, Jeremy's making brownies and Helena is eating the batter! Ahhhh!

But Grey's is on tonight!

"It's fun to stay at the..."

Please tell me why I'm listening to the Village People sing YMCA for the parade of the nations for the Olympic opening ceremony? It has just been one after another of BAD pop songs from the 80's and all American. Italy has beautiful music, why did they select some of the worst music in American history to represent the world? I really don't get it...

But yay! The winter Olympics!