Breakfast

Luke and Andrew have been eating oatmeal almost every morning since they were babies. It is supposed to be great for cholesterol and high in soluble fiber, so I figured I should get them used to eating it while they're young, and that way they will always eat it. This concept has really worked and they LOVE their oatmeal. Every morning, they have "lots of brown cheerios (multigrain), lots of milk, and lots of plain cheerios"

then they excitedly await their oatmeal with different fruits each day.

Bananas and raisins.

applesauce.

strawberries and bananas

peaches and bananas (current favorite)

blueberries

So although they eat the same thing every day, the fruit makes it exciting.

The other exciting part of their oatmeal is their SPOONS.

About a year ago, the boys (especially Luke at the time) started wanting a "baby spoon" with which to eat his oatmeal.

This was a true BABY spoon. The kind you use when a baby is FIRST learning to eat solids. So it is VERY tiny, and takes about three times as long to eat breakfast.

Then he started wanting two baby spoons, which was fine.

Andrew followed suit and pretty soon wanted 3, 4, 5, 6 spoons to eat his oatmeal. It was beginning to get out of control, so I finally set a rule. ONLY 2 SPOONS each day!

They both were fine with this idea, and always made sure they alternated bites, giving each spoon a fair share.

Luke now uses a wider baby spoon with holes in it, and an "orangish-red (really orange, but since red is his favorite color, and we don't have one in red, orange is the closest to red so it has become "orangish red") tiny baby spoon. He is VERY attached to these spoons and will usually have a meltdown if they are not washed and ready to go in the morning.

Andrew on the other hand isn't attached to any particular spoon, but rather enjoys a variety of spoons. He seems to choose the most awkward ones - teaspoons, tablespoons, medicine spoons, medicine syringes, spatulas. last week he even tried to use the needle attachment to an air pump for our basketball. I had to draw the line there!

The last couple of days may be my favorite spoon of choice for Andrew -- a ladel. It is not a huge ladel, but the kind you might use for salad dressing. He finally found an awkward spoon that is big enough to actually get some decent bites of oatmeal!

His Plan (part 3)

We moved back to MD in December of 2005, but still weren't quite sure what Max would do for work. He was still leaning towards teaching. About 2 weeks after we moved back, he got a job selling Hondas. After a couple weeks of working there, the manager said "you have more potential at selling cars than anyone I've ever seen!" So we began to think that maybe that was really his calling!

He did apply and was interviewed at AACS for a teaching position, but when he went there for a day to see how it felt, although the principal really liked him, Max realized that teaching high school was not for him. He wanted to teach people who were actually interested in the subject matter. So he figured that maybe he would go on and teach at a college.

Before long, Barry asked Max what he planned to do with his seminary degree and mentioned that they might have a need for an intern.

NEVER did we think that a job would become available at our HOME CHURCH! One of the pastors was leaving to work for another church, so they really needed the extra help. Although I didn't like the idea of him being a pastor, I was open to an internship, just to see where his strengths were. Besides that, obviously this was GOD opening a door for us! After 6 months at Browns, he said goodbye, and began at the church.

Since Max didn't think he would ever be a pastor, he took NO preaching courses at seminary. Now, with the internship, he HAD to preach! It was truly a blessing that he had spent a few months with Adam in Philly to see how HE went about preparing sermons. He spoke to the other pastors about it, and read a book about preaching, and then went to preach his first sermon. THIS IS WHEN I KNEW HIS CALLING! -- when he preached his first sermon. It was really cool to be there and suddenly have it click that God was calling him to be a pastor.

Suddenly I didn't care about any of the other stuff that used to bother me about the idea of being a "pastor's wife" and I wanted to do what GOD wanted us to do.

There were definitely some tough things about coming back to our home church - dealing with people and elders that have known you since you were a kid sometimes makes it hard to feel respected.

And it was hard for me too with a new baby, but not yet connected with anyone. When you've been gone for 3 years, you can't really just jump back in where you left off. Things had changed and in a lot of ways, it was a very lonely time for me. The longer I've been a pastor's wife, the more I've realized that its OKAY for me to have friends. For a long time I felt like I didn't want to be exclusive, and felt the need to always be reaching out to others, and in doing so was not focusing on building strong lasting friendships. It is okay to have BOTH.

Now, 4 years later (after being ordained last year - Feb, 2009), there is so much going on in the church today (and some messy stuff in our church as well) and so many questions we continue to have. What is our REAL purpose in life, as Christians? what is the purpose of a church? So many demands and expectations are put on pastors and we sometimes wonder why things can't just be simple. Are we being called to plant a church? Are we being called to take over another church? Are we being called to move to Japan where only .4 percent of the population is "Christian"? (yes, we have actually thought about this). What is life gonna be like in 20 years from now? Are we going to still have freedom of religion or will Christians again be persecuted and have to worship in private? History repeats itself, and since I am a realist, I know that things can change drastically in a country in a few years. If that is the case, I'm sure the petty issues that have invaded our churches will no longer matter, and only the gospel of Jesus will be important to get us through our days.

These are the things that I think about and wonder how life will be different in our future (although I certainly don't dwell on these things at all). I just wonder what God has in store for us and continue to pray that we will seek HIS will for our lives. My life is already so different than what I would have said it would be15 years ago, so we will see what another 15 years will bring. (I am turning 30 in a few days. . . maybe this is why I've become so reflective on my life! :)

playing in the sandbox

The sandbox is up and running!!

When Max came home the first time they played in it, they were soaking wet, and had the hose IN the sandbox, turned ON as if they were filling up a pool!!

Max said, "what!? you didn't tell them NOT to fill the sandbox with water?"

So apparently I should have known they would do this and should have told them ahead of time to NOT fill it with water! Oh well. They had fun!

His Plan (part 2)

When I worked at Garrys, I got into MANY conversations with people about my husband who was planning to go to seminary. When we moved to Philly, I had even MORE conversations about my husband BEING in seminary. Here are some of the examples of the questions I was asked.

So your husband goes to Seminary?. . . you're gonna be married to a priest?!
or
so you're gonna be a pastor's wife?
or
How do you feel about being a pastor's wife?
or
(when I was pregnant and told various regular customers who knew Max was in seminary that his name would be Luke)
" Ah, yes. . . a Bible name. . . are you gonna have Matthew, Mark and John next?"

Anyway, in response to all of these questions, I always made it VERY clear that Max did NOT plan to be a pastor! I said that he wasn't quite sure EXACTLY what he wanted to do- maybe teach or become a professor, but we were CERTAIN that he DIDN'T want to be a pastor. Even our good friends in Philly said a couple of times, "are you SURE you don't wanna be a pastor? We think you would be a great preacher".

At least I was certain. I could not stand the thought of Max being a pastor. I don't know if it was really the thought of ME being a "pastor's wife" and the stigma that is often attached to that title or if it was simply that I couldn't imagine him preaching week after week (when I know what he is REALLY like at home :). Regardless, I KNEW that I didn't want him to be a pastor!

Max was pretty certain as well. He opted to finish school in 2 1/2 years and NOT take the extra preaching courses that are required for the MDiv degree (the "preacher's degree").

Towards the end of our stay in Philly God put it on our hearts to switch churches. We left our close network of friends at the church we attended for 1 1/2 years because we felt like we weren't getting spiritually fed. The pastor at the new church was phenomenal, and we quickly found out that he led a "pastor's round-table discussion" every Thursday for any students from the church who went to Westminster. There Adam would explain to these guys, in great detail, HOW he prepares his sermon. Max LOVED this hour he spent with Adam on Thursdays, and was amazed at how he dissected every word of his text. Even though I often questioned WHY Max would participate in this group even though he didn't plan to be a pastor, I figured there was no harm in it either. (As it turns out, Adam only led this "round-table" for a short time - and it just happened to be the short time we were at this church. Also, another participant of this group once said that Adam's hands-on instruction was better than all the preaching classes together.)
We would soon realize that this was just another piece of our lives that God had so perfectly put in place. . . .