Life Lessons on Grace

Over the past three years, God has been teaching me one lesson over and over.  It's all about GRACE.  What does that word mean anyway?  It means God's unmerited favor in my life.  That he is for me, that he is for my good, all the time, and NOT BECAUSE OF ANYTHING I DO.  All because of who he is.  Grace is, as I am learning, God bringing all the goodness of himself and his gifts to bear on my life because he is who he is.  And it has nothing to do with me earning it.

I could write a novel about all the ways God has used Emma Grace to teach me this lesson. Her name has such a significant meaning to me now.  Her name, Grace, represents the theme of this past few years for me and she has been a major catalyst for me learning this lesson.  As parenting has proven to be the hardest thing I have ever attempted, I've come face to face with my tendency to think I can earn God's approval by meeting a standard I set for myself.  As I have failed to meet my own standard over and over again (that's been ugly!!!), I have been met with his unconditional love and approval of me.  What's that all about?  That's grace.  As my sin has loomed large,  the cross of Christ has gotten bigger and bigger to me.  And I love him more as  I see the way he treats me in the face of my sin.  He does not condemn me.  He died and justifies me.  He does not shun me.  He has adopted me and welcomed me into his family.  And he promises, all my life, to always be working for my good, no matter what I do or don't do.  I am his.

Emma Grace's Chinese Name is En Mei, which means "Grace Beautiful."  I had no idea how God would use my firstborn to fill in the meaning of her name for me.  It's a lesson I'll be learning all my life, I am sure.

Working on customer service

EG has been asking for a while now to have a lemonade stand.  So this week I finally got around to putting it together.  If you were driving down the road and saw these cuties selling lemonade, would you stop? 

 

If you did, you would delight them and they'd have you choose from pink or regular.  It would be a really nice afternoon treat for everyone involved.    BUT IF YOU DIDN'T STOP, you might hear one little boy yelling "STUPID" at your car as you cruised past their stand.  Yep, the boss of this lemonade stand has her work cut out for her.   Customer service is not our strong suit in general.   We're working on expressing our disappointment in ways that honor the Lord. It's actually a lesson I am in the midst of learning as well.   Yelling STUPID happens not to be among the appropriate responses, despite what my kiddos think at this point in their lives. 

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All in all the lemonade stand was a huge success.  We live right across from the elementary school so when all the kids got out, we were ready with our lemonade!  And the high schoolers that got off the bus provided quite a bit of business as well.

We made eight dollars and had PLENTY of teachable moments about how to greet customers (please, thank you)  and how NOT to respond to those who didn't stop.   Hopefully, by God's grace, we're making progress in that area as well. 

That was a lot of work.  And I'm not talking about selling the lemonade!

Happy Birthday Andy!

Andy's birthday gift from our family was a fishing pole and a fishing trip.  Jack caught the only fish of the trip! Happy 31st Birthday Andy.  We love you and we're thankful for you! 

C'mon, Cowboy Up

Cowboy up: (from the urban dictionary)

When faced with a hard chore, it's a shift in attitude from "can't" to a positive "can-do" with confidence and a non-complaining spirit that becomes contagious. Used in a sentence: Halfway through a hot day of hauling hay you might tell yourself or your buddy to "c'mon, cow-boy up." and thereby keep your work and your attitude from going south.

I personally was introduced to this phrase in China. When presented with unfamiliar and rather unsavory Chinese delicacies and under obligation to eat them due to position as guest of honor, one must "cowboy up" and use every ounce of sheer will power to swallow said delicacy.

Today I am not hauling hay or eating pig's brain, but I am however faced with my own "cowboy up" situation:


Yep, it's time for potty training. And it is truly taking every thing I've got to press on in this task. We're on attempt number ....I'm not even sure...but this time there's no turning back. We've had a week of mild successes-and only under the constant watchful eye of this mother bird. To date, Jack shows no interest in anything other than playing and pooping on himself, as not to disrupt the flow of play.

We (parents) have lots of motivation though. Diapers are expensive and he's about to bust out of the largest size they make. I did consider Depends. We have a new diaper wearer on the way. I can't imagine potty training and caring for a newborn would help with my sanity. And he can't go to preschool in the fall if he's not potty trained. So Andy and I are finally and officially making the plunge. I've avoided it as long as possible, as Emma Grace was so difficult for me to potty train and Jack has shown no interest. Maybe I'm the reason it's not going well? I'm 0-2 in smooth potty training.

I'm armed with a timer, a sticker chart which leads to Chuck E Cheese, and Diego Pull ups. It's time to Cowboy Up, Ya'll.

Easter Morning

There's a lot about Easter I do love. Maybe the egg dying thing will grow on me (as my little ones grow!) ?? But what I do love about Easter is talking with my kiddos about the meaning of this holiday and pondering it myself. I know my heart won't ever fully grasp the meaning of Christ's death and resurrection, but I am thankful for a time set apart to focus my attention on it. We all enjoyed coloring empty tombs while eating candy and cinnamon rolls in celebration. After our "praise parade" where we danced around the house with crazy celebration music on, and while I was serving up empty tomb cinnamon rolls, EG proclaimed that "this is the best holiday in the whole world!" It's true...with or without the sugar binge! Oh, that each year my heart would more fully understand why! Praise to the Risen King who has defeated sin's power in our hearts and who gives us new life!

We heart Easter Eggs??????

I can't say that I'm a big fan of dying Easter Eggs with children under five. Maybe next year will be our year? Seriously, the kids love it but it tends to stress me out. This year was EG's best year yet! She's almost five so I am pretty sure she's on the brink of being officially "good" at this whole egg dying thing. She's meticulous and neat enough that it went really well on her side of the table. Jackie boy, on the other hand....well, he had lots of fun but most of his eggs were thoroughly cracked by the time they made it in the house. I knew from last years incident not to leave them in the basket. Maybe I am just scarred from last year?

I never actually wrote about what happened last year...around Easter we started to smell something terrible in our kitchen. I mean TERRIBLE. We cleaned out cabinets, pulled out the stove and dishwasher and cleaned back there. We started to check air vents. We eventually called the maintenance men from our apartment complex and we all came to the same conclusion...there must be a dead animal in our wall. The smell was unmistakable and we were all convinced. Yep, a rat or something had obviously crawled in there and died. That's how bad it smelled. We located the area of the wall the smell was coming from and they went to work, cutting big squares of the wall out in search of the rodent. And then Miguel, the head maintenance guy happened to be standing by our kitchen table and notice the smell there, which had previously been close to the stove (not near the table) As he leaned down to further investigate, his nose led him right to the "rodent"...a basket of rotting eggs on the table. Yep, Jack's eggs were all cracked and had been sitting in the kitchen giving off the smell of death. We all laughed and were mortified at the same time. At least the workers were the ones leading the charge on cutting up the wall. They were as convinced as we were. That made me feel a little better. So this year, I made sure every egg was perfectly intact before allowing it in the house!

There's a lot about Easter I do love...more to come on that in my next post!

Where Grown Men Dare to Go

You know that phase of pregnancy where you know everyone notices your growing belly but they are afraid to ask for fear of you not actually being pregnant? I always feel like I need to work it into the conversation somehow and inevitably they say..."Oh I was wondering but didn't want to ask!" Well, we are definitely past that now! Grown men are now brave enough to ask me when I am due! So I must really be showing now!

Thought this ultrasound picture from a couple weeks ago was just precious. Can't wait to hold this little guy!

See the Rsemblance?

I personally loved that Tim thought Andy looked like an angry Hersey kiss. I quite agree. But this ... is our Sunday School class' rendition of this...which is the internet's rendition of the statue in King Nebuchadnezzar's dream.


We've been talking about how God is not like anyone else. And for the past few week's we've been focusing on one way he's different from anyone else...He knows everything there is to know. And in the story, no one could tell King Neb his dream nor could they tell him what it meant. But God knew it and he revealed it to Daniel. The different parts of the statue represents different kingdoms that were going to occur and the rock crushing Andy's clay socks is Christ's kingdom...which has come and is coming to reign!!! There was a lot of laughter creating this statue. What a good reminder that Only God knew the dream itself and he knew and planned everything that the dream predicted. And how we look forward to the day when Christ's kingdom will fill the whole earth!!

Thanks for playing and Sheryl, I'm enlarging this photo just for you...I know you're disappointed you didn't guess correctly.