The Mystery of the Phantom Book Shelves...

(This one's for Cathy...you asked, now you shall receive...)

When we lived in CA, Ben, with the help of Rob, build 3 wall mounted book shelves. We had them mounted in our bedroom in our little apartment in CA. When we moved to AZ we took them down and they have been sitting in our garage for a year (along with all the books that are supposed to go on them). We finally decided it was time to get them up and out of our garage. So Ben & I decided that Saturday morning would be bookshelf morning. We didn't realize it would turn into bookshelf DAY. Right after breakfast Ben and I grabbed the first bookshelf and started up the stairs. Pretty soon we realized that it wasn't going to make it around the corner from the stairs to our room. Hmmm...what to do, what to do? We should have realized that before because our 8 foot ladder has difficulty getting around that corner and these were 10 foot shelves (or so we thought...I'll get to that later). Anyway, we decide that the easiest thing to do would be for Ben to stand on the roof and I would hand the bookshelf to him then he would carry it across the roof to our bedroom window while I ran up the stairs where he would then hand the bookshelf back to me and I would place it in our room. It worked great...3 times! We were a little pooped by then. Anyway, the bookshelves were in our room! Never to be removed! Now we measured the height of the wall and the height of the bookshelves and decided to put them one above the other. The wall was exactly 10 feet 2 inches from wall to doorway. Fantastic! So Ben takes his tape measure and marks the wall in all the right places then we grab the first bookshelf and carry it over to the wall. Just as Ben was climbing up the chair to drill the first bracket into place I say, "Um, Ben? I don't think these bookshelves are 10 feet long." The bookshelf hung over the doorway by almost 2 feet! These weren't 10 foot bookshelves, they were 12 foot bookshelves! Ahh! So we spent about 30 minutes deciding and discussing what to do. Eventually, we decided to borrow a friend's circular saw and chop off 2 feet from each bookshelf. (We only ended up having to chop off 2 of them because we hung one above the doorway...note picture below.) So Ben drove to our friend's house, borrowed the saw, brought it upstairs, chopped off the ends of both shelves filling our room with sawdust (I was not about to carry them downstairs again) and we began to hang them...again. Anyway,the rest went pretty smoothly and I think they look fantastic...take a look for yourself...

The Mystery of the Phantom Ceiling Fan

Two weeks ago we bought a new ceiling fan for our bedroom. Ben spent almost 3 hours putting it up (he made a mistake and had to do it twice). It has a really nice feature of a remote control for the lights and fan, complete with a dimmer and all. This is where it gets weird. It was about 6 am the first morning we had the fan. Ben was in the shower and I was sleeping in bed. All of a sudden the light turned on. I looked up expecting to see Charis standing there. No one was there. Both girls were sound asleep in their beds and Ben was still in the shower. I got out of bed, turned off the light and crawled back into bed. The light turned on again. Creepy! Needless to say I didn't go back to sleep. Then that night Ben was sitting at the computer doing some work and he said, "Hey, who's doing that?" The light was turning off, then he turned it on, then it turned off, then he turned it on. Weird! This has happened quite often this past week so now we just laugh about it. We assume that one of our neighbors has a ceiling fan on the same frequency as ours. The nice thing about it is that we always turn our ceiling fan on when we go to bed, but when we wake up in the morning it's already off so we're not chilly. Ben is going to change the frequency for our remote as soon as he gets the ladder up the stairs again. I'd like to meet our light dueling neighbors though!

My two favorite pastors...

...doing what they do best!
(In case you don't know...that's my dad & my brother-in-law.)

I get to see my Daddy tomorrow! Yipee!

Through the eyes of a 1 year old

Emma discovered the moon tonight. After dinner the girls and I went for a walk. For the first time ever Emma leaned back in her stroller and looked up to the sky. I watched her and saw her face as it went from astonishment to wonder to joy. She saw the moon. She smiled a great big toothy grin at the moon, then...she reached for the moon. I mean literally...she held her hand up and tried to grab the moon between her pointer finger and her thumb. For the rest of the walk she kept staring at the sky and saying, "Moo...moo." It was beautiful!

Decision 2008

You only have 1 more day to vote in the egg poll!

(Scrambled is currently in first place.)

Emma Loves Books!

If you had been in my house for the past week or so you might be very astonished! Emma has a new found love of books. Well, I'm not convinced it's books totally, maybe just a love of paper. But at most any given time you can find Emma sitting still with a book in her lap. Not a board book or necessarily even a children's book but any book will do. She loves to sit and flip the pages back and forth and she'll hold 2 pages in between her pointer finger and her thumb and rub them together over and over and over again. This will last, on average, about 30-45 minutes...yes, I typed minutes. She's so cute when she does this! We have 2 small coffee table books that she plays with every day. Yesterday we went to the library. I think Emma looked at more books than Charis did! She loved it! Every time I would hand her a book she would squeal in delight then set to the task of looking at each and every page and feeling each paper between her fingers. It's adorable!

Quote of the Day

This time from Ben...

"Stuffing should be an everyday food!"

The cable poll

I was so curious about what all of you do for cable. For the past year we've had a pretty nice cable set up. We had a DVR (like TiVo), but starting March 1st our 1 year deal was going to be over and our bill was going up to $70/month just for TV. Ben was feeling convicted about watching too much TV anyway and wanted to cancel it but on top of that the $70/month was just too much! So we decided to cancel it. I thought I was going to have a tough time but really all I miss is Barney. Ben did something else too with our phone service so last month we spent $160 on phone, Internet & TV and this month we're going to spend $70. WOW! California...here we come!

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Oh, and check out the egg poll...I thought it was timely considering Easter is next week...although I know Easter is not all about bunny rabbits and eggs.

On the way to Best Buy...

Charis- "When I get big I'm going to move to a new house far away and I won't have any friends."
Mommy- "Well, you can always make new friends."
Charis- "No, God already made all my friends."
Mommy- "Oh...well, I meant you can meet new friends."

True Humility

As I was unloading the groceries from the cart into the car I looked at both my girls sitting in the front of the grocery cart and I said, "Now this is just my personal opinion but I don't think you girls could get any cuter!" Charis said, "Well, Emma won't but I will."

WHAT?!?!

3 in 1

This is the craft that Charis made in Sunday school yesterday. When I was asking her to explain it to me she said that the middle cross was for Jesus. So I asked her what the other 2 crosses were for. She said, "They are for the other Gods. For the Spirit God and the Father God." Ahhh, the idea of the Trinity can be so confusing for a 3 year old! I took the time to explain to her who the other 2 men were on the cross and that they were sinners and one believed in Jesus and Jesus told him that he would be in heaven with him that day. Then I tried to explain the Trinity, yet again. It's tough to be 3!

Always coming up with something new!

Charis just walked up to me and said, "You are my treasure forever!"

Where does she get this stuff?

Our likes & dislikes

Sarah asked about our likes and dislikes for dinners, so here we go...

Charis:
LOVES cheese, fruits, bread & vegetables
HATES meat (any kind of meat)

Emma:
LOVES bread, bread & more bread (oh, and pasta & some meats too)
HATES fruits & vegetables

Ben:
LOVES spicy man food (meat & potatoes)
HATES vegetables

Melissa:
LOVES fruit, vegetables, pasta, salads
HATES spicy food & a lot of meat

Delicious Dinners For All

So I have a question for all of you out there...Have you ever been able to make a dinner that your whole family has enjoyed? I'm seeming to fail in that area...every night there is at least once person that dislikes the dinner that I've made. Tonight it was Ben's turn. I made angel hair pasta with feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes & cilantro. I thought it was really good. Although I should have known he wouldn't like it since he hates feta cheese and tomatoes...oops. Anyway, if you have any sure fire crowd pleasers, please send them my way...or I might resort to pb&j for awhile!

You and You Alone- CD Review

You and You Alone is the 5th CD in a series of worship and praise CD's that have been written and produced by Sovereign Grace Music. The songs are written by Pat Sczebel and his son Joel. We sing a lot of Sovereign Grace music at our church so when the opportunity came up to hear and evaluate some new music I jumped at the chance. I think it is so important to fill my mind with praise and worship music continually throughout the day. I try to put hymns or worship music on first thing in the morning and usually after nap time/before dinner as well. I think it helps to set the tone for the day and I rather enjoy having songs like "Be Thou My Vision" running through my head all day long. Back to You and You Alone...the CD has 10 songs and each one is full of Christ centered worship. Like most other Sovereign Grace songs the beat is very catchy and unlike a lot of mainstream "Christian" music today I was able to actually hear the words. What I enjoy most about praise and worship music is when I am able to sing along at the top of my lungs...much to the chagrin of my family. The first song on the CD is called Trust in You. There were a few lines in there that stood out to me in light of this being an election year...

All kingdoms, all rulers
Are kept by your power
Sovereign God, we stand in awe

On Sunday our communion was led by an "elder-in-training" in our church and he was talking about when we come to communion to yes, focus on our sin but also focus on the grace that communion shows us. God's ultimate grace. The Greatest of All makes me think back to that communion service.

The greatest of all transactions
The costliest purchase price
Father, Your Son’s atoning death
Was given in payment for mine
To buy me back from slavery
To set me free from my chains

CHORUS
Redeemed, how I love to proclaim it
Redeemed by the blood of the Lamb
Redeemed through Your infinite mercy
Your child and forever I am

I personally prefer songs that focus on God not on myself. A friend of Ben's (who will remain nameless) had a name for those sappy songs that are all about us...he called them "Jesus is my girlfriend" songs. I know what he meant. I truly believe that the music on this CD will guide your mind to focus on God and on the graciousness that He has bestowed on us by giving us the greatest gift of all... salvation through Jesus Christ alone!

You can long on to the Sovereign Grace website to hear a clip from each song on the CD. You can also download the sheet music and lyrics.

ENT

I forgot to post about this...
On Monday Charis went to see the ENT doctor (ear, nose & throat). He suggested waiting on the tubes and instead prescribed her yet another antibiotic. She's already been on this one but he said he prefers for the body to heal itself rather then do surgery, no matter how minimal. She seems to be doing OK for now, although every once in awhile I notice she says, "What?" like she can't hear correctly. We have a follow up appointment in 3 weeks. But the doctor did say that if she got really bad for us to call and he would put the tubes in ASAP. So now we wait.

More Charis

When Charis woke up yesterday morning she sleepily walked down the stairs, rubbing her eyes. "Good Morning!" I said in a sing-sing voice. "Did you sleep well?" She stopped and looked at me, "I didn't sleep last night." She said. "I read books." I laughed and said, "You did sleep. I know, because I went in your room and saw you sleeping." She once again got really serious and said, "When it was dark in my room I closed my eyes and took a picture so I could remember it." Sometimes I think she's a 30 year old trapped in a 3 year old's body!

Oh, Charis!

Emma was rolling around and squirming on the floor so I said, "She looks like a little worm!" Charis looked at me with her eyebrows raised and said, "Actually, she looks like a roly-poly. I'm pretty sure worms don't roll."
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Yesterday the girls and I were walking upstairs for nap time. Charis had previously taken her pants off and left them at the foot of the stairs. The girls were ahead of me and Charis turned and said, "Hey, Mom! Grab my pants on your way up, will ya!"
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I was kissing Charis on her belly the other day and I said, "You taste like chicken!" So Charis said, "If I taste like chicken then Emma tastes like pig!"

I got carded!

This was so exciting! Later on this week I'm making a new recipe that calls for some sort of alcohol in the crock-pot. It's a yummy sounding roast. I'll post the recipe if it turns out good. Anyway, I went to the grocery store today and purchased the can of beer for the roast. As I was checking out the lady behind the counter said, "Can I please see your ID?" It totally caught me off guard, I had no idea why she was asking. She explained that it was because of the alcohol so I pulled out my drivers license and handed it to her. She looked at it then at me and said, "Thanks! I just couldn't tell if you were old enough. You don't look over 21." By this point I was beaming! With huge smile on my face I said, "Thank you very much! You just made my day!" The last time I was carded was for buying a box of shotgun shells at Walmart.

Papago Park

This past weekend we had a fabulous time hiking at Papago Park. This was the first time we were there but definitely not the last! This is one of our destinations. It's called Hole in the Rock...creative, huh?Charis fell down 3 times on the way up...she was a trooper!

This is up at the top. See that hole? We could see a great view of Phoenix & Tempe. And I'm so glad that graffiti made it into the picture.

This is the view from the hole in the rock...Charis loved watching the airplanes landing!

We hiked back down that little mountain and past a lake & a dead catfish. Charis wanted to make sure we got a picture so Mimi could see the dead fish. (I don't know why.)

Some dead guy is buried here. I think it's weird. He was like a governor or something a long time ago. He had something to do with women's voting rights or something. I didn't read the plaque. I was too busy making sure Charis didn't go careening off the edge.

Once again at the end of a hike Ben is carrying both girls! Actually, Charis had just fallen down again so he was helping her. It was pretty steep for a 3 year old and the rocks were really loose.

After hiking we went to a park to play for a little bit. Emma had fallen asleep in the car so I stayed with her while Ben pushed Charis on the swings. She was so tired from all that work she did this morning!

Sweet Emma-lou

I just like this picture...she's such a dolly!

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We have such a plethora of nick names for Emma. Charis has none but Emma has, Emma-Lou-Who, Bemma, Emma-Fo-Femma, Ems the Word, Emmy, Emmy-Bemmy, Bem-Bem, and sometimes just Lou.

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Please remember to pray for Charis. Tomorrow she has a Dr. appointment with an ear, nose & throat specialist to see what we can do about this never-ending ear infection. (We're going on week 4 of the infection and the 3rd antibiotic.)

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We were driving in the car this morning and I was complaining about how itchy I was. On Friday I got a little bit of a sunburn and it's starting to itch. So I said, "Ugh! I'm so itchy!" Charis very maturely says, "Don't scratch, it doesn't help."

Martins

Last night we had a very nice dinner with our friends, the Martins. Charis LOVES playing with Isaiah! They really do play well together. Ben and Eric love to talk and Sarah and I just try to keep everyone alive until it's time for us to leave. Thanks for dinner guys!