Worship

Tonight I was given the opportunity to lead our worship service before our classes at church. It's been a while since I lead...and I had forgotten just how much physical, emotional, and spiritual work goes into leading people into the throne room. And, as usual, God loves to teach me via object lessons - so naturally today was extra tough as I prepared. I just adore worshipping God, and I am humbled and elated to use whatever talents or abilities He has granted me to bring glory to His precious name! He is worthy!

Hollow, Deceptive Philosophy

I have had the great pleasure of re-connecting with many old high school friends via a discussion board one of them set up. It's been a lot of fun and a great apologetic exercise for me. Many on the board would claim to be atheist, or at least agnostic. Then there are many other faiths represented, including a "universe is God" view. There are a few Evangelicals, but needless to say, I am horribly outnumbered, and have been praying earnestly before many of my faith-related posts.

Now I know beyond any shadow of any doubt that there are no coincidences with God. Wouldn't you know it, but right in the height of a very good discussion on the nature of Truth with these friends, I find myself in a Bible study of the book of Colossians. And here is what I read:

"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority." (Col. 2:8-10)

AMEN! Sometimes those hollow philosophies can sound very reasonable...but in the end, they deny the deity of Christ and elevate man to god, creating relativistic truth - which is no truth at all. So, together with all the saints I proclaim: "To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power for ever and ever!" (Rev. 5:13b)

Ethan's New Room

As some of you know from previous posts, I started the process of moving Ethan from the small room upstairs to the larger room downstairs (across from his brother) that we had been using as an office (the office is now the small room upstairs). The move itself was quite a project and getting Ethan's slide bed put together was the next big thing. Well, it's taken me 3 months total, but everything is finally done and I'm rather pleased with the results. None of this was planned, really...it kind of unfolded as we went - which is what made it so fun. We ended up with a "knight and dragon" theme, which I'm very happy about. This theme can be used as a teaching tool both from a faith standpoint and a "growing up to be a man" standpoint! Much better than the Disney 'theme of the day' if you ask me!

Sir Ethan slaying the fierce dragon

I found a "treasure chest" looking toybox that I may get to replace the snoopy one. Gotta keep the snoopy one - it's vintage...I'll probably stick it back up in the office to keep some toys in for the kids when I'm working - we kept the snoopy theme in there (from when it was Ethan's room). You can also see we had a lot of fun one day making paper snowflakes.
Thank you, IKEA!! The shelves, the dragons and the curtains - and all for under $70!
You can't tell the pictures that well because they technically aren't pictures. Every poster I found of dragons was a bit too "graphic" for a preschooler. But I found a couple of really cool scrapbook pages at Michaels - one with a dragon in shadow breathing glittery fire, and another with a knight in full armor on horseback. I framed them along with a page that looks like a piece of parchment - on that one I wrote out "the Knight's Code", laminated it and put it on his bulletin board. TEACHING MOMENT!!!! It's actually come in quite useful when teaching character traits.
This is one of my favorite parts - a $10 set of plastic armor found at Target!

The end of a season...

The journey of life is nothing if not change. This week, we had to say goodbye to such an integral part of our lives, that I never imagined being without them. Our dear friends - our brother and sister - James and Letitia Brooks, are moving their family to Virginia to be closer to extended family. Here are some photos of the goodbye party we threw them, and all the members of our little "family" here in MN....

Back(from left): Eddie, James, Merry, Greg
Seated: Letitia and little Hannah

Letitia, Patrick, Patricia and James (oops - got a little finger smudge on the lens)

Bev and Chris Stark with little Ben, Letitia and James

We moved up here as four newly graduated college students ready to take on the world. Instead, the world took on us a bit. However, though relationships change, the really deeper ones cannot be destroyed. James and Letitia are more than friends, more than family. I cannot explain the conflicting feelings I have - I'm excited for them and the new phase they are entering, but deeply sad to be "loosing" them.

The "blizzard" of 2007

This is the most snow we've gotten since we first moved here. The problem with this one is that it all came practically at once. Last Sat. we got the first 8-12 inches. Shoveled out of that one and had a beautiful week. Then, it started snowing late Wednesday night and didn't stop until Friday afternoon giving us an additional18-20 inches. WE SHOVELED THE DRIVE 4+ TIMES FOR PETE'S SAKE!!!



And here is what being stuck inside for a snowstorm produces in young boys under the age of 5:




Now you know why I am waiting to buy new furniture...

Columbia Children's Museum

Wouldn't you know it...gotta take the kids to the south to expose them to ice fishing!
Fireman Ethan
Right in the middle of the museum is this huge kid. You can go inside of him - it's built like an obstacle course, but with body systems. You can walk into his heart, jump around in his stomach with the food he's eaten, slide down his esophagus, etc. It's really cool.

One of the boys favorite parts was the grocery store. Noah knew exactly what to do - he grabbed a cart and went right to shopping. Ethan bought what he wanted for lunch: a sandwhich, some milk, and a whole cake. At least Noah got a few veggies and fruit in his cart!
They never miss the chance to sit on a John Deere.
Or a camel.
Ethan enjoyed playing along with the video of the African drummers.

Here are some photos of our family in South Carolina. We had a wonderful time and the weather was heavenly (we conveniently missed the coldest snap in MN so far this winter...hee, hee,hee!)


Rob's mom, dad, and youngest brother (who is STILL not married, ladies! And he COOKS!)
Ethan with some cousins - they had a lot of fun running around in the church gym.
Noah having some cuddle time with grandma.
Four generations of Funderburk's: This is Rob's last living grandparent - his paternal grandma Ethel Funderburk. Noah is copying the people trying to get him to smile...he still doesn't quite get the photo op.




This is Rob and his cousins. Later, we had a wonderful time visiting with Mike (far left) and his lovely wife, Rhonda.
Ethan and great-grandma Funderburk. The boys just loved her collection of animated stuffed animals!

One last Christmas photo....

Here is one last photo from Christmas - the boys were helping me take down the decorations. They both enjoyed the tinsel very much!

Catching up

Well - it's been almost forever since I found time to sit down and blog! We took a couple of weeks to prepare for and travel to SC. Then when we got back, there was a lot of stuff to catch up on, 2 very large snow storms, and lots of events all of a sudden at our church. Now I'm entering "the birthday months" - and finding that almost every other family at church has kids born this month as well! UGH. Trying to organize Ethan's 5th birthday is proving difficult.

Anyway, the next several posts will be updates for the past couple of months. Thanks for being patient with me!