Christmas Traditions

Monday's w/ Michael

As you all know, Jane and I love our traditions. And no other holiday has as many traditions as Christmas. For us, the Christmas season begins the day after Thanksgiving, as we battle the masses searching for the perfect gift on Black Friday. This year, we left home a little after 4:00 AM and got to Target before they opened at 5:00. We had a great day and made a lot of really good purchases. Thanks Mom & Dad B for watching the boys overnight so we could get an early start.

The next tradition comes the following day when we go pick out our Christmas tree. For the past couple of years, we have gotten our trees from the Fennig family at Holly Pines. http://www.hollypines.com/index.html They make it so much fun. They have a straw bale maze in their barn and a cute little gift shop in one of their other buildings.

They offer wagon rides.

They even have their very own Santa!

Deacon enjoyed helping us pick out the perfect tree. Unfortunately, his choices were a little smaller than what we had in mind.

Once we find the perfect tree, the next adventure is getting it home safely.

Later that evening is another favorite tradition: decorating the tree! Deacon was quite the little helper this year. Here he is helping Mommy with the lights.

He even wanted to stand on the stool so he could reach higher.

And he loved putting on the ornaments.

These are just a few of our fun Christmas traditions. This is such an exciting time of the year and we have so much to look forward to over the next 18 days.

Make it a great week!

Weird, Random Thoughts

Monday's w/ Michael

You know when you are almost asleep and your mind starts drifting and weird, random thoughts pop into your head and you have no idea where they come from? I've had a lot of those moments lately. As I'm feeding Finn in the middle of the night, trying not to fall asleep in the rocker, my mind comes up with some pretty interesting things. I've been trying to keep track of them. Here are actual thoughts that have entered my brain in the past few weeks and my best guess at an interpretation:

"The brown fur doesn't have bones. It gets its support from naps." - Hmmm...one of Bailey's puppies has brown fur. And I need a nap!

"Do you know the local paramedics?" "Yeah, I used to watch over them when I was in the front." - I think I intercepted a conversation between two angels. The paramedics watch over us, but who watches over the paramedics? Angels, obviously.

"Yeah, but with that face, she's got to be some type of perniacle scout." - "Perniacle"? Ok, not making sense is one thing, but when you start making up words, you know you are behind on your sleep!

"We'll work on that free throw after he wakes up in Pretty Mad County, ok?" - I think I was thinking about teaching Finn how to play basketball, but I'm not sure why he was in the county of "Pretty Mad".

I had originally typed this when Finn was just a couple weeks old. I had hoped to have many more weird thoughts, but now that he is sleeping through the night, I am thinking much more clearly.

Make it a great week!

It was just a dog.

Monday's w/ Michael

This family I know owns a dog. Their dog likes to run. It travels all over the neighborhood. Everyone in the neighborhood knows the dog. They don't mind that it visits them. It's a nice dog.

A lady I know happened to be driving through the neighborhood one day. She saw the dog walking along the road. There weren't any houses nearby. She was afraid the dog was lost. She stopped the van and opened the door. She was going to check to see if the dog had tags so she would know who it belonged to. Instead, the dog hopped right in the van. So she drove to a few houses in the neighborhood to see if anyone knew who the dog belonged to, but no one was home. So she decided to take the dog back to her house, since it was such a nice dog.

When she got back to her house, she made a few phone calls to people she knew that lived in the area where she found the dog. Still, no one was home, so she left messages. She decided that if no one knew who the dog belonged to, she would keep it. It was a nice dog.

Eventually, someone from the neighborhood called her back and told her who the dog belonged to. They explained that the dog likes to travel and that is why it was so far away from it's home when she found it. She loaded the dog back into the van and took it back to it's home. It was a happy ending for everyone involved.

It was nice of that lady to stop to see if she could help the lost dog. It was nice of her to want to give it a home if she couldn't find the rightful owner. But the more I thought about this story, the more I realized that it was just a dog. It was just a dog.

There are 143,000,000 orphans in the world today. More than 127,000 of them are in the US Foster Care. We see their pictures on the internet. We hear their stories. Yet most of us don't do anything to help them. Sure, we might offer up a hurried prayer. Maybe we'll even send some money. But I can't help but wonder how many of us would have picked up that lost dog, yet turn our backs on the lost, hurting, starving children? How many of us would be willing to give a dog a home, but not a child?

I encourage each of you to pray about it today. Sincerely pray about adoption. Sincerely pray about becoming foster parents. Sincerely pray about how you can help these children.

Make it a great Monday!

Yellow Lab or Golden Retriever?

As everyone knows, our dog, Bailey, loves to chase cars. Saturday the Highway Dept put a new yellow line down our road. Evidently, Bailey got too close to the truck.

"I would do anything for love"

Monday's w/ Michael

Jane has been wanting me to take her to a certain kind of restaurant to try a certain type of food for quite a while. I have always turned her down. But on Saturday, I surprised her and took her to:



So that we could try:





Here was our meal. The smaller white rolls are raw tuna. The larger green roll is an avacado/crab meat roll.



I'm reminded of the song by Meatloaf "I'd do anything for love". It ends with these lyrics.



"Anything for love,


Oh, I would do anything for love,


I would do anything for love,




But I won't do that." (Again).



Jane really enjoyed it. Me...not so much. The next time we go, I'll try the teriyaki.


The really sad part about all of this, was that there was a Rally's in the same parking lot. I could hear Big Buford calling my name!


Make it a great Monday!

Kids 2 Kids

Monday's w/ Michael

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." Prov 22:6

My Aunt Angie and her husband Chip Topp have adopted 2 children. My cousin Katie and her husband Greg Isch have adopted 3 children. These 2 couples have done numerous other things to help the hurting children in the world. This passion to help children did not go unnoticed by their biological children.

Alivia Topp and Kayla Isch have created a website http://www.kids-2-kids.webs.com/ Most 13 year old girls dream about boys, cheerleading, clothes, etc. But not these 2 young ladies. Their "dream is to help the children who are starving, who go to bed hungry EVERY night." They are helping children across the globe by providing money and care packages for them. They even have a link on their website that allows you to donate rice to starving children for free! But be careful...it can be addicting!

These girls are amazing. I am so proud of them and I'm proud to know them! But this post isn't about them. It's about the 1 Billion children living in poverty. It's about the 6,000 children who will die today because of water related illnesses. It's about the 143,000,000 orphans worldwide. To find out more about how you can help these children, please visit http://kids-2-kids.webs.com/

Make it a great Monday!

National Adoption Month

Due to a virus on our home computer, this was not posted until Tuesday morning.

Monday's w/ Michael

November 2009 is National Adoption Month. Next Sunday, November 8th, is Orphan Sunday. Please visit http://www.orphansunday.com/

Here are 10 ways you can help:

1). Pray for them.

2). Speak up for them.

3). Provide for their needs.

4). Support those who support them.

5). Protect them from harm.

6). Visit them where they are.

7). Give sacrificially to them.

8). Encourage them to press on.

9). Adopt them into your family.

10). Mobilize your church for them.

On Sunday, Jane and I had the opportunity to hear the Children of the World Choir. There were approximately 15 young children from around the world who by God's mercy had made it to a Village of Hope. Now these kids travel across the country to help other kids just like them. They provided some startling statistics:

There are approximatelyh 2.2 billion children on this planet.

1 Billion of them live in extreme poverty.

6,000 children die every day from water related diseases.

$15 can provide enough water for 1 child for 20 years!

Every time we flush the toilet, we use as much water as the average person in Africa uses in an entire day! As of 7:37 on Tuesday morning, I have flushed the toilet twice, washed my hands twice, brushed my teeth, taken a shower, started a load of laundry in the wash machine for Jane and rinsed out my breakfast dishes. I've probably already used more water than a small African village!

These were good reminders to me. And I hope that they are good reminders to you too. But I also hope that this can be much more than just a reminder. I hope that this will inspire us to take action...to actually do something about these severe crises.

Make it a great Tuesday!