Long Time No See

For Christmas, my Dad got us a new TV and a Wii. One of our favorite family games is Wii Sports Bowling. For Lisa's Birthday I took a couple of days off from work and we went "real bowling" as Eli says. Pretty exciting. You'll notice Eli crossing the line in one of the pics. He about jumped out of his skin when he heard the buzz.

We finished that day off at the Lake. Lord help us not to take these moments for granted.

We also have a Star Wars Legos game for the Wii and Eli's new favorite thing is Star Wars. He got a Star Wars Legos kit for Valentine's Day.

The little man is going to be the reactor of the family. His face absolutely lit up when he saw his puppy dog. The puppy dog still has priviledge in his crib.

Christmas 2008

Some pics from this year's Christmas.

Isaac Climbs into Highchair

He bloodied his lip twice today, but not while doing this.

Merry Christmas!

From Crops

Pics

From Crops

Enraptured by a good story

From Crops

Happy Birthday Eli!

From Crops

Checking "Scroogeism"

This is really good from R.C. Sproul.

http://www.ligonier.org/blog/2008/12/marleys-message-to-scrooge.html

As I have watched Eli's mind mature and become more easily enraptured with good story, I have been convicted of too often taking the mystery and story out of Christianity. Doctrine is so important. It is the foundation for absolutely everything. Without it, we can hold to nothing. Without it, worship is impossible. Again, we are so careful to not fall into the "doctrinelessness" of much of today's church or the mindless New Age spirituality of our age, that we totally lose the experiential quality of the faith. We must learn to leave room for mystery. In our care to rightly frame all things doctrinally, we must not end in an intellectual exercise only. We cannot be paralyzed by what is a healthy concern for right understanding and we shouldn't make others around us feel this way as well. We must, like little children, stand before the throne of God - knowing what we know about Him because He has revealed Himself and because we have so painfully slowly trained our minds to think His thoughts after Him - and be overwhelmed. That is the true experience of transcendence (which Oprah and her followers are longing for and yet will never find because they have lost doctrine of the miracle of Christmas - the transcendent God becoming eminent in the flesh of Jesus Christ); that is the essence of worship.

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

October Glory

Here's my tribute to the last day of October. This was taken a couple of days ago of a Red Maple in front of our house. It's a late bloomer which makes me wonder if this is the October Glory cultivar of Red Maple. I have read somewhere that these trees would have been better named November Glory. If not October Glory then Red Sunset. Does anyone out there know how to tell the difference? In a few more years, we may find out because we planted one of each in the back yard this fall along with a Legacy Sugar Maple, Fiesta Sugar Maple, Autumn Blaze Red Maple Silver Maple cross, Burgundy Belle Red Maple and Brandywine Red Maple. We are waiting for the Yoshino Cherries to arrive from arborday next month.

From Landscape