Valentine's Day, a snow day and much good news

As I type this, I have much for which I can be grateful.  As life goes we have faced some challenges this week, but we have had some big, good news come our way.

We celebrated Valentine's Day as we traditionally do with homemade and decorated cupcakes.  I was inspired by a cupcake I had last week that a friend baked.  It was topped in homemade caramel icing. I cheated and bought the icing, but Savannah made the cupcakes from scratch.  I should not have cheated on the icing.  Lesson learned.

I drug inspired Andy to join me for Jazzercise on Sunday afternoon.  It was fun, but snow was falling when we left, and by the time we finished the class, the drive home was borderline scary.  Andy is not intimidated by slick roads, but he declared that we would spend the rest of the night at home.  Our district called a snow day shortly after we arrived home, so we enjoyed a family game night without the pressure of school the next day.

Andy loves me so...he gave me one of my favorite candies and some of my favorite tea from Teavana.

On Monday morning, the whole family was home- so rare these days. Andy built a fire, and we enjoyed hanging out and reading in front of it.  When Andy went to work that night, he got the go-ahead to share a secret we have been keeping for several days.  I am not usually happy to give up a summer day for a snow day, but I was just so grateful to have everybody together on Sunday night and Monday morning that I really enjoyed this one.  Andy and I only get one real day off together each week, so this was a treat.

Andy will no longer be working nights after this week!! He will also return to working close enough to home to walk.

Our biggest news came yesterday.  You might remember the interview about which I posted a couple of weeks ago.  That was a scholarship interview for Savannah's first choice school.  Savannah received confirmation that she has a Presidential scholarship (full tuition).  There are a couple of other scholarships that may come through to cover her housing.  We are thrilled!  This school offers Savannah a chance to study pharmacy in one of the top five schools in the nation, and she can also complete a degree in economics.  That is an unusual combination and one that she really did not find anywhere else.  To God be the glory for this incredible gift!

Savannah is very excited.  She has been on pins and needles waiting for this news.

Have you not heard?

Dear Readers,
I admit that I don't know who some of you are.  My blog is public though not easily found (on purpose) on a search of the web.  I have played with making it private - only to have family members pitch a fit, and my intended audience is my own children.  Though they don't read it now, this chronicle of their childhood may be important to them someday.  I write for myself.  I find my ability to remember things I want to remember only comes from writing them down.  Failure to do that, and I am that person listening to a story about an event where I was very much present and unable to recall it.

Since I don't know who some of you are, I am writing today to you.  It has come to my attention in a couple of places lately where people have shared their stories of sharing the gospel with friends, family members, or co-workers and found the recipient say that they had never before heard that Christ claimed to be the only way to God.

We can argue about new earth or old earth (Jump on over to Andy's blog if you want to join that discussion).  We can argue about predestination and what exactly that means.  We can argue about how things will play out in the future.  However, not one of these arguments matter if this one thing is missed.

So today I direct you to John 14:6 where Jesus says "I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well.  From now on, you do know him and have seen him."

Do you see what He is doing there?  He is claiming that he is the son of God - thus deity (another surprise as many don't realize that He owned His deity, and this is not the only place he does this).  He claims He is the only way.

I know that many want to believe that there are many ways to God.  However, if there was another way, why would Jesus beg His Father to take this cup from Him in the Garden of Gethsemane - Matthew 26:39?  Why then, would He have to be crucified?  Certainly, if there was another way, it would have been taken.

I wish there was another way, but the really good news for us is that we have nothing to prove.  He loves us and died for us.  We only need to accept this free gift and follow Him.  He asks us to make Him our Lord and Savior.  I think we tend to want one or the other.  We know we need a Savior, but the Lord part - no I don't want that, or we get that He is Lord, but we think we are good enough to not need a Savior.  Being good does not save you!  Everyone sins and falls short of the glory of God, but we have a God merciful and loving enough to send us a way back to Him.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  - John 3:16  (I don't see God giving us another way here - though the other way is to live a perfectly sinless life.  Guess what...we all blew that by the time we were about six years old!).

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.  Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.  -John 3:17-18

Let's not forget this day after Valentine's Day this very important truth.
This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 1 John 4:10

Julia's dream for her future - there are no words

It goes down like this:
She gets engaged in Africa.  She and her fiancé are on an elephant that is riding a boogie board in the ocean.  She is 23 years old.

They marry when she is 24. By the way his last name is Smith (so she has not yet met him) because anything goes with Smith.

They have their daughter when Julia is 26.  They name her Uni Corn Smith- yes, you read that right.

Their son joins the family when Julia is 28.  His name is Pine Apple Smith.

I have no words.

In other humorous family news, this conversation went down tonight as we were putting groceries away.

Wyatt: I wonder when pot pies will be in season.

Andy directs him to the deep freeze where he finds a pot pie.  Wyatt says: I guess they are in season.

A day with laughter is a very good day.

Oh Happy Day!

Is Zach a superfan? Maybe

If you know Andy at all, you know that he is a Broncos fan - not a jump on the bandwagon because who doesn't love Peyton Manning or Tim Tebow fan, but a tried and true multi-decade Broncos fan. You can imagine the excitement over the last few weeks in this house as the Broncos won game after game and finally secured a spot in the Superbowl.  Everyone in this house over the age of sixteen except for me owns some sort of Broncos apparel.  Our plans for the big game were not completely set until Wednesday.  Our church group had a gathering, but for the past few years, Zach and Savannah alternated having friends over.  While they have great, trustworthy friends, Andy and I still feel the need to be present for those gatherings.  On Wednesday, Savannah decided not to have friends over, so Andy and I committed to the class party.  Savannah was actually going with us as this is her class too.  On Thursday her plans changed, so she went over to a friend's house.

Zach went to a friends house - dressed as you see him above.

Andy enjoyed the game and even DVR'd it for later viewing.  I socialized and caught very little of the action.  The one time I tried to watch the game, it seemed that the Broncos were struggling.  I figured it best that I leave the room as they had done better without my viewing up to that point.  As you know the game ended with happy Pages returning to the roost.

The only thing better than enjoying a big win with great friends would have been to be there in person.

Post Game Thoughts: I liked the half-time show for the most part.  I'm not a fan of women scantily clad doing seductive dances, so Beyonce's part of it was not appealing to me.  It looked like Cold Play and Bruno Mars just had fun, and the montage of past performances was really fun.  The sound left something to be desired.  Hopefully, that was better live.

Andy and a friend from church were game day ready even for worship.

I think the hype over Cam Newton walking away from the post-game interview was ridiculous.  Anyone who has been closely associated with sports knows that the agony of defeat is much greater than the elation of victory.  It seems unnecessary and cruel to parade players from the losing team in front of the press to rehash what went wrong - especially right after the game.  Just my two cents on that.

Zach came away from the game totally impressed with Von Miller.  He actually bought a Von Miller Superbowl shirt to celebrate :)  I have to say that I was counting on that win to have an idea for Valentine's Day for Andy.  I don't know what I would have come up with if it hadn't been so easy to just get a championship shirt. SHH!!

Normally I would spend my Sunday afternoon napping.  There's just something about a Sunday afternoon nap.  However, when Julia came downstairs for church Sunday morning, I faced a game changer (no pun intended).  She wore a too-small spring dress.  What?  When I insisted she change, she pointed out truthfully that she wears the same thing every Sunday because she has nothing that fits.  Ouch.  Andy's response to my decision to shop for Julia -"you are always buying her clothes."  Ouch again.  Here's the thing.  She's growing lots, and when I am always buying her clothes, I am never buying a wardrobe.  I am buying a pair of jeans here and a shirt there to get her by until I can really shop, so I had to face the music and buy the girl a decent winter wardrobe in the middle of winter.  

Shopping with Julia never goes as quickly as you hope.  It's always an experience.  I liken it to trying to keep track of an unleashed dog in a field of squirrels.  You will always lose Julia at some point to some shiny thing that she must stop to explore - typically, this happens multiple times.  Fortunately, the middle of winter means we can shop clearance sales.  I chose a store that caters to teenage girls and boys - one that Savannah particularly likes.  That's a risky move because Savannah and Julia do not want to dress alike. This store carries junior sizes -yes, I bit the bullet and moved Julia up to the next level.  If I am going all out, she needs to wear this stuff this year.   This particular store has cheap clothes.  I don't know how long they will last, but I needed cheap.  We totally rocked the sale, and Julia ended up with a free bottle of cologne out of the deal - actually better than free as it took additional dollars off of our purchase.  We then went to a bigger store for jeans and a pair of jeggings she really wanted a few weeks ago when we visited there.  She had to have the jeans, so I bought them -saved only by a great coupon on the high price for those.  The jeggings were on clearance and so was a cute skater skirt - bonus!  

We finished our adventure just minutes before I had to leave for the football party.  Julia scored four sweaters, two pairs of pants, a camisole, one pair of jeans, one pair of jeggings, and a skirt. Whew!  Hopefully, this will see her through next winter, and we got amazing deals.  

Just some additional trivia about shopping with Julia:

She likes her clothes to be comfortable.  I kid you not, she did standing splits in the dressing room to check every pair of pants we bought!  Seriously!  She pulled her leg up straight over her head.

Julia is all about claw machines these days.  She talked me into one last stop before heading home so that she could check out a shirt she had seen and liked there.  The lines were long as this is a supermarket, and it's Sunday - Superbowl Sunday.  She left me in line with the items she wanted to purchase so that she could check out the new stock in the claw machine.  Really?  She did not return to me.  I found her playing the claw and winning.  Grr.

She can shop at the same place as Savannah because their sense of style rarely overlaps.  Case in point: Julia got the cutest red jeans and a nautical, navy sweater printed with anchors to go with it.  I love it- my favorite of her choices!  Savannah would not even consider wearing anchors on her clothing and thinks I am way too enamored with the nautical look.  Seriously, I think I was born to live in a beach town, just saying.  Well, except for the whole hurricane thing - maybe inland but close would be better for me.

The shopping trip combined with a late night enjoying the big game left me starting the week pretty tired.

P.S. Savannah's interview a couple of weeks ago was for a big scholarship at her first choice school. We should know in the next couple of weeks if she got it.  She's on pins and needles waiting, and she interviews for Yale this Saturday - truly a long shot but why not try?

photo session - Kinsley and Kallie

Kallie's hospital pictures were less than stellar. She had a rash, and the photographer was not impressive.  I didn't do much better, but we tried to get some keepers in her special outfit now that the rash is gone.

Kinsley is one happy girl.

Kallie stayed awake most of the time.  She's a content baby, but she did not like being on the blanket too long.  She likes to snuggle.

I still can't get over that hair!

preciousness!

possibly my favorite

Check out those long fingers!  Future flutist or pianist?

This girl loves to dance.  We danced and danced.  That's a girl after my own heart.  I have always wished that I stuck dance out all the way through college.  I may have done it, but it was too much commitment for my parents with five kids behind me.

Build those biceps and triceps, Girlie! Don't let anyone take advantage of you, but if they try, call on your mighty cousins who will have your back - Zach, Austin, Logan, Ira, and Isaac - mess with her, and you mess with them!

We are still trying to decide who she looks like.  I found an old picture of Savannah, and there are some similarities there, but I think she mostly looks like my brother, Jonathan.  She'll probably look like somebody else next month, so it's all in good fun.  Kallie just looks like Kallie.

So much joy!