In the Meadow We Can Build a PC Snowperson

Here is a picture that I snagged from Mrs. P's vacation from her vacation pics. It was taken at Paige's house a bit before Christmas. Paige made us all a wonderful soup and salad lunch. The wine was flowing and the laughter was abundant.

Behind Bill and Paige's house is the perfect hill for toddlers and pre-schoolers. We had a great time sledding and it helped Tammy to feel at home (she is from British Columbia... notice this snowman drinks Tim Horton's).

In the picture from the left: Owen, Lydia, Marion, George, Snowthing, Tammy, Paige, Anna's head, Nathan, Anna's body. Shawn was taking the picture and Watson was asleep in the house.

I am glad that Mrs. P brought her camera, because it may be the only outdoor activity for me until the golf courses open! (Notice I am in my winter clogs).

Today It is Fulfilled

Today marks the end of Shawn's 6 year vacation. Welcome home. Now let's get back to work.

Ellie Vedra is Home!! Praise the Lord!

Little Ellie

Today the Vedras stopped over for a visit. We talked about Ellie and her continued hospitalization. We had great prayer together. The church really needs to continue to pray for the Vedras. Continue to pray for the doctors to have much wisdom. Check updates here.

Miss Ellie Rose Vedra

Please welcome Miss Eleanor Rose Vedra into the world with us. Miss Ellie was born to Adam and Emily Vedra on Wednesday. She was 6 lbs 5 ounces and 20.25" long.

At the present time Miss Ellie is in the NICU at Saint Mary's on Jefferson. There are some serious medical conditions that are requiring her to spend some time at De Vos Children's Hospital.

Please check updates here on her condition and remember her in your prayers. Remember Adam, Emily, Noah, and Seth as well. Pray that the Lord sustains them through this trial. May God's name be glorified and the church learn of God's goodness toward us!

Whata Weekend With Watson!

This was a very special weekend for our family. Besides Watson getting baptized, we had some special visitors as well.

Here is Mrs. Lanning giving Watson a kiss. He is in the very special baptism gown that she made out of Lydia's wedding dress. All three of our children were baptized in it and we hope that it will stay in our family for generations to come. Maggie spent the weekend with us. She slept in the boy's room and Owen had to crawl in with her at 8AM to make sure that she did not sleep the day away.
Here is the Grand Rapids Commission of the RPCNA. We had a long weekend of examinations, family interviews, and hours of great Christian fellowship. James Faris was unable to be in this picture, but he is on the Commission as well.
Here is a goofy picture of the smiling Eshelman women. It looks like Brian is trying to snuggle up to my mom... but I assure you that this is not the case!
Here is another of Linda with Watson. She deserves two pictures since she made the dress. Today is Linda's tenth 40th birthday as well!
Here is Rev. Lanning with us. He has had the privledge of baptizing all three of our children. I cherish the pictures of him with them after the baptism. He gave a moving sermon as well as on Jesus's view of children. It is worth listening to again.
And one of the family. Watson was the picture perfect baby through the whole baptism. He slept the whole time!
* * * * * * * *Sorry, Bruce, no turkey pictures as of yet. I will get the video for Watson and make sure he memorizes all of the tips. You will have to take him hunting though... I gave it up after grandpa dropped me in the river!

Tante Heidi ist die beste tante in der ganzen Welt!

In my last Saturday evening, I forgot to put up a picture of Tante Heidi. I must say, that I am quite ashamed since she is ALWAYS there for us for love and support. Heidi has been there for Anna and Owen's delivery and I know how much she wanted to be there for Watson's birth as well. We understand, work is an honorable thing. She made sure to check in every few hours as well as kept up-to-date on the blog while she was at work. I have heard that her fellow employees were quite interested in the unfolding of event on LOUA as well!

We are so grateful for her love and support. Her love for our family always shows in her kindness towards us.

Here is Heidi with her niece and nephews. Anna does not look too impressed, but Owen sure is infatuated with Watson.
Anna remained unimpressed for this photo as well, but the love is there.

"We love you Tante Heidi!"

"Wir lieben dich Heidi, kommen bitte, uns wieder zu sehen real bald! Wir können nicht warten, um dich in Frankfurt zu besuchen!"

Slings and Things

Our friends were here this week from Albany. Tammy and Jody made a new sling for Lydia and the new baby.

You all should check out their website and order one. You can also order some clothes, hats, and bloomers to cover your bum.

Visit Scarlet Stitch.

Compu-update

I am not officially supposed to be blogging, because my computer is not fixed.

Here is an update:

• My HP vz6000 is officially in need of a new hard drive. This is quite sad because I use antivirus as well as ad and spy ware software.
  
• My friend, Mark Jurries said that he will put a new one in for me once I order it. I found one on Newegg for under $60. I am very happy that she can be saved.
  
• Adam Vedra, my oldest Grand Rapids buddy, was able to put the HP on life support long enough to extract all of the data that I had stored on it. I was very glad that he was able to do this (he is a Calvin College IT genius). One reason that I was so depressed this week about my computer is that my entire seminary experience is saved on it. I did not have any external hard drive on which I was backing up my material. Basically, Adam saved me from a bout with clinical depression.
  
• For now I am using Lydia's Sony Vaio laptop. It is really nice and I appreciate the fact that she allowed me to download all of my programs on it until my HP is raised from the dead.
  

Lessons learned:

• Back up your files. It can happen to you.
  
• Do not rely too heavily on these machines for writing. I have hard copies of all of the books that I use on Bible software. Do not be too dependent on the quick and easy ways to search.
• Thank the Lord that there are friends with diverse gifts. I talked with some guy in India for 2 hours and he told me NOTHING that Adam and Mark did not already say.
  
• Blogging is too fun to give up.
  

Happy Birthday Mrs. Pickering!

Happy Birthday Mrs. Pickering. We miss you very much!

SO MUCH to Talk About!!

So much has happened in a week and I could post 10 different posts about it all. I will try for one. Our little Owen turned 2 a week ago. We were in PA visiting my family and they hosted a party for him. He wanted a "Thomas Train" cake, so my mother had one made for him. It was chocolatey good. It was fun watching him opening presents with his sister's "help".

We ate at a really great restaurant that was minutes from Lake Erie. It was in an old lighthouse and had really good steak. It is one of the best local restaurants that I have eaten at in a long time there. Anna wanted to show off her love for the Desert Fathers who were famous for their hours of meditations while standing on poles. She also said that she could not wait for her friend, Brian, to see the picture! I am not sure if I should worried about having a little female mystic on my hands- how is that a form of devotion? Standing on a pole for hours???
These next three are for my aunt Debbie: We travelled around all week with this juice box on top of the car and kept forgetting to take it off. Aunt Debbie wanted to see if it could make it back to Michigan, so we gave it a try... The first one is the juice in Cleveland, Ohio.
Toledo.
In Indiana, just before the Michigan border.
We lost it within a hundred feet of the Welcome to Michigan sign. Lydia and I gasped as if Sedgwick had jumped from the Mountaineer! We really hoped to get one on Union Avenue, but it just could not make it. Oh well.

Here is Marion, Anna, and Maggie at Paige and Bill's wedding. It will be interesting to see how Anna maintains a relationship with these two women as she grows. With Moey going to the land of Aqua Net and Moon Pies and Maggie living in Motown it changes things for our little girl. She loves these two SO much. Anna already has plans for writing Ms. Moes letters.

Here is Anna with the beautiful bride. Paige looked so lovely. I am very happy for her. She could not have found a greater man than Bill. He exemplifies the Lord Jesus in the way that he lives and interacts with others. He is quite well read too (which gives him extra Nate points). I am sure that the Lord will use them in great ways together.
Anna is not quite sure whether Paige is lawfully married though. I guess that in a 3 1/2 year-old head, a bride without a vale over her face is not really getting married. Anna informed Maggie, Lydia, and I today that she would have one over her hair and her eyes when she gets married!

We Are Going on A Bear Hunt...

Yesterday we watched Noah and Seth so that Adam and Emily could go out for some dinner with friends. We had a great time with them. They are always so fun and adventurous. Very much 'boys boys'. We took them to Saint Joseph Seminary across the street to play ball in the field. When they were done kicking and running we decided to go on a Bear Hunt with some of our time together.
We began walking through the strip of woods that surrounds the acreage of the Seminary. We could see the street at all times, of course, but to the kids we were deep in the woods looking for bears. Seth and Noah 'climbed' a tree to see if they could see any signs of bears anywhere (we saw lots of signs of very large dogs)... no bear.
Anna and Owen decided to give it a try. They were not able to locate a bear either.
We continued to look and seek. We saw a lot of places where the neighborhood skunks and opossum live- but no bears.
Anna found a bright orange stick that she was able to poke and prod with in her search for wild-life.
Owen thought that he found a bear, but alas, it was just an old Jack Daniels bottle that had been heaved over the fence into the woods.
The woods got thick in some places. Lydia and I were not able to make it into some of the smaller areas, but with Owen at the charge, the kids were sure to find their way through.
Noah decided to take the lead for awhile and lead the kids towards the killing of a giant black bear.
There was no bear this time. I am sure that we will have plenty of time to go on other bear hunts. We walked back to our home and had some cookies that Emily made and some nice water to wash it down.
What a group of hunters!
* * * If you do not have the book that is linked above- our children LOVE it!

Joke's Over

Hey Maggie. The joke's over now. Yep, really funny. You can come home now and stop pretending that you live in Eastern Michigan and attend Southfield. Truth is that you live in Grand Rapids and go to the church here. Yep. Funny. Come home, please?

Tammy Anderson

Look at this picture of Tammy Anderson when she was a little girl. I bet her parents would have never dreamed that such a God fearing, health conscientious, and active young girl would grow up to marry my buddy Shawn. God sure has different plans than we do!

Maggie's Mac and Cheesey Fiestaware Luncheon

Today Maggie "Scott" Porter came over to make lunch for us. She made home-made macaroni and cheese. It was really good. She stayed for family worship which is always a nice thing. I love when company is in our home to worship with us.

She stayed for coffee and dessert that Lydia made. It was a fudge brownie oatmeal bar that was so rich that I had three teeth fall out while eating it. It was washed down with two hot cups of Starbucks' French Roast coffee (Owen ground the beans for me).

We talked about blogging for a while. She made fun of me for having a category entitled, Fiestaware, which reminded me that I found a great Fiesta Persimmon vase while I was in Pennsylvania. I was in a dusty unorganized bookshop looking for Glasgow's History of the RPCNA from 1888. Of course the book was not there, but the vase was a nice way to soothe the pain of another failed attempt at locating the book. The vase is a nice addition to my Fiesta vase collection. I think I am over a dozen now. (Notice vase is a subcategory of the Fiesta collection.) I need to blog more about the Fiesta collection.

I had to go to work, so I sent her home with 12 lectures on prayer by Dr. Michael Haykin to listen to on the ride home to Southfield. Ask her if she listened to them. A test is sure to follow!

Please?

Maggie will you come and take pictures of Anna and Owen? They really want you to!

Autumn Time Goodness

I was just hoping that a friend of mine had made an apple crisp. Yummy warm apple crisp with vanilla ice-cream and drizzly caramel. Any suggestions?

Gretchen had her baby!

Congratulations to Corey and Gretchen Johnson on the arrival of their little girl

NATALIE ROSE!

Sorry that she was not the 300,000,000th baby in the United States, but that is not really all that important now is it?

Hope all is well with baby and mama!

Be At Peace

The following is found in "The Fruit of Her Hands" by Nancy Wilson, directed towards women, but applying to all Christians. This is in light of The Director's recent post on Wendler Cottage. This is quite helpful and we thank Marion for her summation:

Be at Peace

Nancy Wilson

[Wo]men who want to be at peace with other [wo]men must come to understand the very important difference between principles and methods. A dictionary defines a principle as "a basic truth, general law, or doctrine used as a basis of reasoning or a guide to actions or behavior." A Christian [wo]man must learn to think biblically; [s]he must derive her/his basic principles of living from God's Word. The world eagerly presses its principles regarding marriage and child-rearing upon us. But if we learn to think like Christians, we can discern between worldly and Christian principles.

A method, in contrast, is "a procedure or way of doing something." In other words, we use methods to apply our principles. For example, a sound mothering principle is "All Christian mothers should feed their babies." This principle could easily be substantiated in Scripture, and few, if any, would take issue with such a fundamental principle. In spite of general agreement on this and other related principles, however, much disagreement exists on the method of applying this simple precept. Some women breastfeed their babies; some bottle feed. And of course there is the question of schedule feeding vs. nonschedule feeding, when to wean baby, and so forth.

Within a Christian community, families will certainly share many common principles, but their methods will vary. Sometimes an overzealous allegiance to method will lead to confusion and controversy, for the method of feeding baby can become larger and more important than the principle of feeding baby. Suddenly, pressure is exerted to convince women to join the group and support a particular method.

Of course, this is not an argument that all methods are equal--they are not. Some methods are inferior to others. Rather, the point is that the methods of others are not really our business. If a friend asks for advice on a method, we may of course give it. But when sharing a method, we must remember we are not on a moral crusade.

Young Christian [wo]men are particularly vulnerable to this wrong kind of pressure. When the sisters get together they very naturally "talk shop" about children. This can provide an overzealous type quite an opportunity to apply pressure. If the young women feel inexperienced, a woman with "a strong case" for her method can exert a great influence. The young Christian woman can be made to feel that she isn't really dedicated unless she adopts "the method."

Because every family is a distinct cultural unit, it is good that our methods differ. God did not intend for us to walk in lockstep with one another. This is not altered when some families have inferior methods; we may deem their methods to be unwise. And remember, there are others, wiser than we, who see the inferiority of some of our methods! We ought to rejoice in a common commitment to biblical principles, and rejoice in the variety of methods God's people employ.

If we become overzealous for conformity to our method, strife between Christians will commonly result. I have talked to women who, because they felt strongly about one way of feeding babies, became critical toward their sisters who used a different method. This should not be! "Be at peace among yourselves" (1 Thess. 5:12-13). Certainly the [wo]men of the church ought not to be squabbling about whether or not to schedule feed their babies! Who cares? What someone else does in this regard is no one else's business. It is not a moral issue, and we have no business fighting over it.

We do not honor God if we are critical or defensive. How our friends feed their children is not our concern.

The biggest danger is when people begin to think their own methods of applying biblical principles are the most spiritual, for the really committed. If we fall into this trap, then it becomes an issue of first importance for us. The result is a feeling of superiority over others who differ. This obviously leads to self-righteousness, envy, jealousy, defensiveness, and quarrels.

As we grow in grace, may we all learn to discern the difference between principles and methods, and relax, and keep the peace, when our friends' methods are not our own.

(From A Hedge of Courtesy)

But another aspect to this whole question of different methods needs to be addressed and that is the question of common courtesy. How do we treat our friends when we differ with them over methods? Do we criticize them behind their backs? The Bible calls this backbiting. Do we openly criticize them? Do we tell them their method is inferior to our own? That can be arrogant or just plain rude. Do we make officially "polite" but loaded comments which express our displeasure and disapproval of their application of God's principles? Do we try to embarrass them to make ourselves look better? This is not courtesy.

Can Christians ever discuss their methods? Certainly! But the hedge of courtesy and good manners should be firmly in place. If it is not, defensiveness and hurt feelings will be the common result.

More here...

Happy Birthday, Mackie!

We hope that you have a great day and want you to know that we are thankful for you in our lives! You have been a joy to be around and, of course, our children love you, too!

Psalm 22

So, how old are you? We guess 22? Weren't you 21 last year?