A surprise Birthday Party!

Yeah! Mom was really surprised for her 60th Birthday. Dad arranged for us all to meet at Anthony's for a Sunday Brunch.
Julie and I comparing our belly's

A girls pic

Thanks Dan and Sue and Gary and Izzi for coming all the way to Spokane for the surprise. We all had a lot of fun!

The World's Children

This photoblog shows pictures of just a few of the world's impoverished children. CLICK HERE.

(HT: Challies.com)

How 'Where's Waldo' can help me understand the Bible

My 3 year old son loves books & more specifically, ‘Where’s Waldo?’. He loves observing, searching, & looking for Waldo as if he was Sherlock Holmes in search of the missing clue to solve a mystery. There are countless people, doing countless things, with countless things occurring on each page. Ezra tells me, ‘Daddy, look. That man is throwing a baseball [not just a ball], she is holding a green purse [not just a purse], the boy is crying because he got hit [not just crying]. He observes with intense detail.

As a book lover myself, I am overjoyed in Ezra’s love for books. Yet, after reading “Agassiz and the Fish” I realized that my son observes Where’s Waldo? with greater inquiry, depth, and intensity than I often do when I open the very Word of God in search of His illumination, understanding, and God-given insight for the good of my soul.


At 3 years old, Ezra is learning how to observe pictures & words and eventually sentences, which are within in paragraphs with are in complete letters which fit into the whole of Scripture. I am grateful and exhorted with this privilege to help him learn to observe, read, and understand the Bible in the God-wrought hope that he would, by the grace of God, comprehend and have illumination of the ‘sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus’ (2 Tim. 3:15).

What a privilege to have the Scriptures, and may I chew upon, dig into and study the Scriptures as my 3 year old son does with Where’s Waldo?!

Fall photos & Costumes

Heidi took the kids to a fall festival party tonight. They gave the kids some cupcakes and lots of candy. Here is a pic of Olivia sharing her cupcake with Ezra once they got back home. Oh yea, she ate all of the frosting off and then wanted to share the cupcake with Ezra.

We picked up lots of leaves today. I put Ezra and Olivia in the garbage cans to help smash 'em down. They had lots of fun...Ezra thought he was Oscar the Grouch. (The house we recently moved into is in the background).

Ezra the Pumpkin and Olivia the Clown. They loved dressing up and having some fun together.

Smashing leaves down for daddy

Oh my the kids were so excited when they figured out if they worked together they could give mommy a ride in their wagon!!! Mommy was pretty excited about it also!

Need I say anything about this.

She absolutely loves her bath time

Ear to ear smiles!!!

A trip away from the chaos

So a few days after moving into our new house we decided to get away from the chaos and make a trip over to Bothel to visit Nick and Julie's new place. (And to celebrate Heidi and Julie's birthday since they're so close together) We had a great time relaxing, catching up, seeing where Nick works as the new manager, and visiting Canyon Hills Community Church with them. We actually stayed with a Sawatzky family friend, Jeanne Ryan, because she had more room to house us. It's funny because Saturday we all took naps and watched college football. We didn't go out and visit any place, we just kicked back and relaxed indoors. It was just what we needed after having to pack up and move with one weeks notice. By the way, thanks to all the people who graciously helped us move!
Heidi and Julie with Jeanne. She used to babysit the girls when they were little and is now like another sister. We love you Jeanne!
Pictures of the new house to come soon. . . . . . . . . . .

'Do Lord, O Do Lord, O do remember Me'

Ezra loves the sound 'Do Lord'. He was putting on a little concert for us. Sometimes he sings is very softly and it sounds great...and then other times he kind of 'screams' it...this is one of those screaming times. It is really fun to watch him like to sing so much!

Modern Day Foot-Washing