a few random things.

Confession: I sometimes wake up my sleeping husband even if I'm wide awake if one of the boys needs us. It is hilarious to watch him stumble out of bed, and if I am lucky he will mumble some utter nonsense. It's great. Besides he never remembers the next day.

Confession: I love the cartoon, Emperor's New School. It is hilarious. Don't love it 'til you try it. I also love the Hannah Montana show...so does my husband. In fact, we were going to get tickets to her concert in a few weeks, but they sold out in like 5 minutes. Yeah, she rocks!

Confession: I don't know how to fold the fitted sheet. I once perfected it,I have no idea how and it was pretty much a miracle that it ever occurred. Now our fitted sheets get rolled into a ball and thrown into the closet.

Confession: I drink about a half a pot of coffee a day.

Confession: In High School a friend bought me the movie, Monty Python And The Holy Grail because she thought it was my favorite. I did quote it, but I had never seen it... I still haven't.

Confession: I have never seen the movie, The Princess Bride. I KNOW! But it's true.

Confession: I am not entirely sure about my feelings on the color pink.
Confession: I can tell you the make and model of pretty much any car. A weird talent yes, but again, it's true.

Does this happen at your house? It does at mine!

Advent house.

I got this cute little Martha Stewart advent house that I finished putting together this afternoon. It was fun to fill with candy treats for my little sweets. :)

oh Evan...

Mornings are not good for me. It takes me a couple cups of coffee and some time to fully wake up. This morning as I began preparing breakfast for the boys I had to laugh as I began pouring this....

Who doesn't love Starbucks berry gum and a sharpie for breakfast?

(I know, Iknow blurry picture, but I grabbed my nearby camera and took the picture left handed and laughing so that I might not mess with the pouring action of our yummy breakfast.)

Then this afternoon I come across this....

He had consumed half of a black crayon! Good thing they were non-toxic.
What fun will I have in store for tommorow? You never know with my little Ev.

Some thoughs on Materialism.

They are attacking!! Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, Crate and Barrel, CB2, Land of Nod, Blueprint, Pier 1, Restoration Hardware, J. Crew, and countless other magazines are trying to make their way into my home!

I love receiving my Martha Stewart Living, Food, and New Yorker magazines because they were all gift subscriptions and I love to read them. However, all the home decor, clothing, and pretty much any magazine that you can order from into the recycle bin as I enter the house.

This is not a new or profound idea I have had, in fact, I have done it before. While paging through magazines is not wrong in itself for me right now, it has been an area of lusting and wanting the things inside.

Part of it is, I want it all too much. I want nice things. I want a cute house. I want to be fashionable and put together. I want to be a good mother, a creative person, and a godly woman. The problem I see is that I want so much for myself so others will approve of and love me, that I will love me, and I am leaving Christ out of the mix. Loving myself too much and Christ too little.

I started throwing away my magazines when one afternoon I had brought them in, planning to sit down and page through them while my boys played. I thought to myself, I cannot afford to buy anything in these magazines, I don't really need anything in these magazines, and why not play with my boys more today. I threw them out in the garage and my boys and I had an amazing afternoon of silly games and lots of laughs.I am not trying to say you should never want to buy nice things. I mean I do think it is fine to want nice things, and trust me I still have a long way to go before my material wants dissolve. It can become dangerous though. When you get what you want and then you want more and more and more, then it becomes sticky and icky. Your want for nice things has become an obssesion.

I have found this year as we bought our first home I want so much, fully furnished beautiful rooms, when the reality is we cannot afford it. Even if we could it would still be foolish of us to waste all our money on making our house "perfect". I think it is more important to give unto others, and to give to your church and missions. Where the money can be used to further Gods kingdom.

I love the story of the widow's offering in Mark 12 :41-44. It reads;

" And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

This story is very humbling. It makes me realize how selfish I am so often. It really has struck me this year. I want to know Christ more. To love him more. To not care about things so much. I encourage you to read Carolyn Mahaneys' latest post on Girltalk, as she refelcts on materialism a bit too. While I don't always agree with the girltalkers, they do have some great insights, and this post was a goodie.

Things are just things after all. And for now, I know I need to keep on recycling those magazines when they come. While I long to be this way or that way, or have this thing or that thing, I most of all want to keep seeking to be honoring to Christ. To be growing in my love and knowledge of him.

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal." - Matthew 6:19- 21

Happy (belated) Thanksgiving.

Max with the turkey cookies he helped Grandma Jane and Aunt Jaimee make.

The only picture I took while home this past weekend. Bad, bad me.

Learn and help end world hunger!

This is so great, and fun! Go to http://www.freerice.com/ and they will give you a word pick the one the answer that best defines that word. For each word you get right,they donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations to help end world hunger! I love it!

busy boys.

preparing for Thanksgiving

"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6).

This year as we head home to Wisconsin to be with our families, I am especially thankful for what God has taught me this year. While I know how little I still know about him, I am so thankful for what he has taught me, how much I have grown and what he has revealed about his mysterious self to me.

Trust Christ. There is no greater happiness than in him. You can be thankful for the past, the trials you've endured, all things in your life, and you can, with faith look forward to the future. There is nothing greater, more healing, more lasting than with Christ. Your sins forgiven! Eternity with him! What is greater than those promises?

Thank God for all his promises for us because of Jesus!

My little brother makes me laugh.

the case of the cursed trail mix

So there's this bag of trail mix sitting on my desk here at work.I got it from the United Way.

See, they handed out little bags to everyone in the office along with forms for donating money to them. So I guess you could say the trail mix was a little pre-'thank you' from them.

No problem right?

Except that I didn't donate any money.But the trail mix was given to me via my mailbox without my consent. So I grabbed it out of my mailbox and put it on my desk fully knowing that I would never eat it since I am not a big fan of trail mix. But mostly, I felt guilty for not donating money and felt that I could not enjoy a bag of trail mix given to me under false-donation-pretenses.

So it has been sitting here for about a month and half...staring at me...taunting, judging, mocking me with it's message of 'New Look, Same Great Taste!'. Is this how the United Way operates? By torturing me with a bag of trail mix which I clearly don't want to eat but even worse, feel I cannot eat because of my cheap-ness!? WHO ARE THESE MONSTERS!

Clearly, this bag of trail mix is cursed. It must be destroyed. I know of only one way to do so. No, it doesn't involve Mount Doom. This bag of trail mix has an expiration date. Thus, I must wait...silently...patiently...until 04/06/08 when finally the raisins curdle, the M&M's harden, and the nuts....well I'm not really sure what happens when you leave out nuts too long. Nevertheless, that day will be the day of reckoning....when I finally cast off the chains of trail mix oppression and throw away the bag.

*copyright. Alec Wojciechowski 2007

Ev. Bev.

Feeding himself.

sitting in the oven.

"drinking" the latte he found in the trash can.

Evan has been bored these last few days, begging for attention and wanting to play with Max. Maxwell has held a fever the last few days so has been on the couch all day. I have been tending to him and Evan is craving back to "normal". I love this little guy.

sickness.

Just when I thought the boys were over their mild colds they both wake up with fevers this morning.

Cousins!

We have had visitors pretty much for a month straight, but we love it! To finish off the visits until we head back to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving, my cousin Sara and her son Paul came. We had a blast together!

Book Giveaway.

We're having a book giveaway this month at Ungrind.

Come check us out and enter to win!

arrrrrrrrrrrrrr matey....

Both boys are a bit under the weather as you might be able to tell...but we blame it on too much rum. Scurvy Pirates!

Avast belay, yo ho, heave to,
A-pirating we go
And if we're parted by a shot
We're sure to meet below!
Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
Yo ho, yo ho, the pirates life for me!

update.

I don't know about you, but we find it hard to believe it is almost Thanksgiving. We are looking forward to our time back in Wisconsin with friends and family.

The last few months have been a whirlwind, we finally found a church home in August, and we are loving getting involved there. A place where Christ is the proirity, where the word is taught as we cultivate health and holinesss as a church body, and we have already made some amazing friends. We are so thankful for Providence and for Gods work in leading us there.

Justin is enjoying his job, and he always has a good story to share from his day at work. He has Fridays off which is so nice so we have a long weekend together as a family. About a month ago he actually got a raise, so he is obviously doing a great job. I am thankful for his hard work in providing for our family, and that I am able to be at home with the boys. I was reading the advice column in the paper this morning where a girl was asking about her friends who were about to get married and the wife made like three times as much as the man and how should they spilt their money. I guess I always assumed that it would all go to one pot and together decisions together would be made how to spend the money once the bills were paid. She mentioned that if they split the bills 50/50 he would have hardly any money leftover. The whole thing seemed like unessesary conflict and the advice columnist actually gave pretty good advice saying perhaps they should postphone the wedding and step back and realize that they may want the security of marriage but without the sacrifice, trust or commitment. Interesting.

Anyway, makes me all the more glad I can stay home. I digress.
Maxwell is such a little boy now. No longer a baby. He talks in full sentences, understands what I am saying most of the time, and is a great big brother. He is very good with Evan and they play very well together....for the most part. There are times when Max gets very frustrated with Evan and he grunts at him but he is very good (again for the most part) with not hitting him or pushing him down. They wrestle and one of my favortie things is when Max makes a funny noise and it makes Evan laugh and laugh. Max continues and they go on and on in laughter. It is the best when we are in the car.

Speaking of Evan he is in the midst of a nasty little cold, but being the trooper he is, he is handling it quite well. He doesn't let it slow him down one bit. He is so funny, he wants so, so badly to be just like Max. He knows how to irritate Max, he will grab a car and take of running as Max is playing with them on our fireplace. Max chases him and Evan loves it. When Max takes the car back Evan whines like he wants me to yell at Max but then goes back and does it again. It is cute, but eventually usually needs my intervention so there is not a brother brawl.

It is fun having two boys just two years apart, and they are so very different in their personalities but love each other so much.

I have been busy with stuff. You know the usual household stuff, being the Neighborhood treasurer, getting involved with a few different ministries at church.

So there you have it. A short little nutshell of what we have been up to the past few months.

Hope you are all well too.

this is my life.

Dumpster diving and roadside finds!

this is my life.

Socks are always missing...and why do boys always have holes in their socks?

this is my life.

Cooking with my 3 year old....even when it means a little extra clean up.

this is my life.

Things are never where they belong. My Evan has a thing for the toliet.

Poor Jack (aka- the dog).

this is my life.

Jumbled up train table.

this is my life....

...catching my 1 year old in the kitchen sink with the dirty breakfast dishes.

this is my life.

I was totally inspired by Bethany's "this is my life" series that I decided to join with her.

Rocked my socks off.

A New Kind of Urban Christian
As the city goes, so goes the culture.
Tim Keller

In the winter of 2006, two movies mirrored the fractured and confusing
relationship between Christians and culture. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe struck fear in many secular hearts. Some journalists saw it as an ominous sign of growing right-wing power that a company like Disney would make a movie that had such profound evangelical appeal (and, arguably, content). And why did Disney pull the plug on the gay-friendly TV reality series Welcome to the Neighborhood? Isn't this, the pundits asked, what happens when you let Christians influence culture?
At the same time, The End of the Spear, the account of five evangelical missionaries martyred in Ecuador, upset some Christians when it was discovered that an active gay man was playing Nate Saint, the lead role in the movie. Conservative cultural commentators were divided. Some, like Eugene Veith of World magazine, urged Christians to see the movie and judge it on its artistic merits, not on the morals of its actors off screen. Others urged a boycott. Major questions about Christianity and culture were raised on hundreds of websites. What makes a movie "Christian"? Do all the actors have to be Christians? If not, which kinds of sinners are allowed, and which are not? Is spiritual compromise inevitable when Christians try to enter mainstream cultural production?
The relationship of Christians to culture is the singular current crisis point for the church. Evangelicals are deeply divided over how to interact with a social order that is growing increasingly post-Christian. Some advise a reemphasis on tradition and on "letting the church be the church," rejecting any direct attempt to influence society as a whole. Others are hostile to culture, but hopeful that they can change it through aggressive action, often of a political sort. Still others believe that "you change culture one heart at a time." Finally, many are attracted to the new culture and want to reengineer the church to modify its adversarial relationship with culture. Many in the "one heart at a time" party play down doctrine and stress experience, while some in the reengineering group are changing distinctives of evangelical doctrine in the name of cultural engagement. That is fueling much theological controversy, but even people who agree on the need for change disagree over what to do to our doctrine to reach the culture.
None of the strategies listed above should be abandoned. We need Christian tradition, Christians in politics, and effective evangelism. And the church has always contextualized itself into its surrounding culture. There are harmful excesses in every approach, however. I think that is because many have turned their specialty into a single magic bullet that will solve the whole problem. I doubt such a magic bullet exists, but just bundling them all together is not sufficient either.
Instead, we need a new and different strategy.City Within a City
My first strategic point is simple: More Christians should live long-term in cities. Historians point out that by A.D. 300, the urban populations of the Roman Empire were largely Christian, while the countryside was pagan. (Indeed, the word pagan originally meant someone from the countryside—its use as a synonym for a non-Christian dates from this era.) The same was true during the first millennium A.D. in Europe—the cities were Christian, but the broad population across the countryside was pagan. The lesson from both eras is that when cities are Christian, even if the majority of the population is pagan, society is headed on a Christian trajectory. Why? As the city goes, so goes the culture. Cultural trends tend to be generated in the city and flow outward to the rest of society.
People who live in large urban cultural centers, occupying jobs in the arts, business, academia, publishing, the helping professions, and the media, tend to have a disproportionate impact on how things are done in our culture. Having lived and ministered in New York City for 17 years, I am continually astonished at how the people I live with and know affect what everyone else in the country sees on the screen, in print, in art, and in business.
I am not talking about the "elite-elites"—the rich and famous—but about the "grassroots-elites." It is not so much the top executives that make MTV what it is, but the scores of young, hip creatives just out of college who take jobs at all levels of the organization. The people who live in cities in the greatest numbers tend to see their values expressed in the culture.
Do I mean that all Christians must live in cities? No. We need Christians and churches everywhere there are people! But I have taken up the call of the late James Montgomery Boice, an urban pastor (at Philadelphia's Tenth Presbyterian Church) who knew that evangelical Christians have been particularly unwilling to live in cities. In his book Two Cities: Two Loves, he argued that evangelicals should live in cities in at least the same percentage as the general population. If we do not, we should not expect much influence in society.
Once in cities, Christians should be a dynamic counterculture. It is not enough for Christians to simply live as individuals in the city. They must live as a particular kind of community. Jesus told his disciples that they were "a city on a hill" that showed God's glory to the world (Matt. 5:14-16). Christians are called to be an alternate city within every earthly city, an alternate human culture within every human culture, to show how sex, money, and power can be used in nondestructive ways.
Regarding sex, the alternate city avoids secular society's idolization of sex and traditional society's fear of it. It is a community that so loves and cares for its members that chastity makes sense. It teaches its members to conform their bodily beings to the shape of the gospel—abstinence outside of marriage and fidelity within. Regarding money, the Christian counterculture encourages a radically generous commitment of time, money, relationships, and living space to social justice and the needs of the poor, the immigrant, and the economically and physically weak. Regarding power, Christian community is visibly committed to power-sharing and relationship-building between races and classes that are alienated outside of the body of Christ. The practical evidence of this will be churches that are increasingly multiethnic, both in the congregations at large and in their leadership.
It will not be enough for Christians to form a culture that runs counter to the values of the broader culture. Christians should be a community radically committed to the good of the city as a whole. We must move out to sacrificially serve the good of the whole human community, especially the poor. Revelation 21-22 makes it clear that the ultimate purpose of redemption is not to escape the material world, but to renew it. God's purpose is not only saving individuals, but also inaugurating a new world based on justice, peace, and love, not power, strife, and selfishness.
So Christians work for the peace, security, justice, and prosperity of their city and their neighbors, loving them in word and in deed, whether they believe what we do or not. In Jeremiah 29:7, Israel's exiles were called not just to live in the city, but also to love it and work for its shalom—its economic, social, and spiritual flourishing. The citizens of God's city are the best possible citizens of their earthly cities.
This is the only kind of cultural engagement that will not corrupt us and conform us to the world's pattern of life. If Christians go to urban centers simply to acquire power, they will never achieve cultural influence and change that is deep, lasting, and embraced by the broader society. We must live in the city to serve all the peoples in it, not just our own tribe. We must lose our power to find our (true) power. Christianity will not be attractive enough to win influence except through sacrificial service to all people, regardless of their beliefs.
This strategy (if we must call it that) will work. In every culture, some Christian conduct will be offensive and attacked, but some will be moving and attractive to outsiders. "Though they accuse you … they may see your good deeds and glorify God" (1 Peter 2:12, see also Matt. 5:16). In the Middle East, a Christian sexual ethic makes sense, but not "turn the other cheek." In secular New York City, the Christian teaching on forgiveness and reconciliation is welcome, but our sexual ethics seem horribly regressive. Every non-Christian culture has enough common grace to recognize some of the work of God in the world and to be attracted to it, even while Christianity in other ways will offend the prevailing culture.
So we must neither just denounce the culture nor adopt it. We must sacrificially serve the common good, expecting to be constantly misunderstood and sometimes attacked. We must walk in the steps of the one who laid down his life for his opponents.The Worldview of Work
There is another important component to being a Christian counterculture for the common good. Christians should be a people who integrate their faith with their work. Culture is a set of shared practices, attitudes, values, and beliefs, which are rooted in common understandings of the "big questions"—where life comes from, what life means, who we are, and what is important enough to spend our time doing it in the years allotted to us. No one can live or do their work without some answers to such questions, and every set of answers shapes culture.
Most fields of work today are dominated by a very different set of answers from those of Christianity. But when many Christians enter a vocational field, they either seal off their faith and work like everyone else around them, or they spout Bible verses to their coworkers. We do not know very well how to persuade people of Christianity's answers by showing them the faith-based, worldview roots of everyone's work. We do not know how to equip our people to think out the implications of the gospel for art, business, government, journalism, entertainment, and scholarship. Developing humane, creative, and excellent business environments out of our understanding of the gospel can be part of this work. The embodiment of joy, hope, and truth in the arts is also part of this work. If Christians live in major cultural centers in great numbers, doing their work in an excellent but distinctive manner, that alone will produce a different kind of culture than the one in which we live now.
Jewish society sought spiritual power, while Greek society valued wisdom (1 Cor. 1:22-25). Each culture was dominated by a hope that Paul's preaching revealed to be an idol. Yet only in Christ, the true "wisdom of God" for Greeks and the true "power of God" for Jews, could their cultural storylines find a happy ending. The church envisioned in this article attracts people to Christianity by showing how Christ resolves our society's cultural problems and fulfills its cultural hopes. "For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength.

"This article first appeared in the May 2006 issue of Christianity Today. Used by permission of Christianity Today International, Carol Stream, IL 60188."

Hooray for a sandbox!

sandbox on the hill.









having fun playing!











Thanks Grandpa and Grandma!

Ever since we moved to this house I thought it would be great if the boys had a sandbox under our tree on the hill, because there is a little path leading up to a flat area that would be perfect for a sandbox. Well, this past weekend, while my parents were here they purchased the supplies needed, and Justin and my Dad built this sandbox! The boys are in love!