Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Scripture Encouragement

I have a sticker in the front of my bible that breaks the Psalms up into 30 different readings, so you can read through the Psalms each month.
This morning I got to Panera a little early before I was supposed to meet with a guy, so that I could do my reading and journaling.
Today's Psalm was 139.

Today we also went to the doctor for Katie's check up. Amazingly we only have one more check up before the big day! Well, with this on my mind, Psalm 139 hit home pretty well.

I inserted Annie's name into the text and it is beautiful. (A pastor from Fellowship did this in the hospital with Davis as well and it was really neat to be looking at Davis and hear these words.)

But as I read these words it is hard to freak out about being a parent again. It's hard to worry about "getting it right". It's hard to stress about "raising kids". But it becomes easy to rest in the hands of a sovereign God who is so much greater than I give Him credit for being. It becomes easy to breathe easy, knowing Gods plans are higher than mine, and his thoughts above mine. It becomes easy to know that Annie is no accident, work of nature, just another baby... but rather a gift from our Heavenly Father.

Ps. 139:13-18
"For you created Annie's inmost being;
you knit Annie together in Katie's womb.
I praise you because Annie is fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Annie's frame was not hidden from you when she was made in the secret place.
When Annie was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw her unformed body.
All the days ordained for Annie were written in your book before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with you."

Resting easy in who He is.

Monday, April 27, 2009

Weekend Update

We had a great weekend!
It was a weekend for me, that felt like a long weekend- which is always good when it actually wasn't!
It started off with the end of the year Young Life party at Two Rivers Pavilion. Such a beautiful place and fun time to wrap up the school year. Young Life is so fortunate to be blessed with an amaazing community.
It was a little weird/bittersweet for Katie knowing this was her last year on staff for this season. She has been such an amazing part to that community and it has been very good to her as well. While we are so excited about her being able to stay home with Davis and Annie for a while, it is still hard for her to leave something she is so gifted at and loves so dearly.
After the party we headed over to the Luttrell's lake house for a weekend with our couples small group.
This is what we woke up to.

Not a bad weekend at all! It is so fun to have no agenda and be surrounded by friends who know how to laugh well. We talked about everything under the sun, and spent plenty of time there as well!

Thanks to the Luttrells and our small group for a great weekend.

Davis spent the weekend with Archie and Susan and had a great time as well. Eating out, playing in the dirt (they planted flowers), playing outside, driving around town, etc... It is so nice to have our families close to entrust him with for weekends away.

Sunday we were back and after picking Davis up spent a few more minutes in the sun at mom and dad's.
Davis was not willing to wait for his first dip in the pool of the year. Mom was walking him around the pool and as he saw Katie in the pool cooling off, he decided he needed to get in as well. So in he went! We just decided it was easier to leave his clothes on! Should be a great summer by the pool!


I personally think they are both crazy, because that pool was COLD.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Under 3 weeks

Katie had her weekly check up yesterday and everything is looking good. Annie is sitting really low which adds some extra pressure, but everything is still a go for 3 weeks from yesterday.

I went down 2.5 pounds this week, which i was happy with.
P90X is on a down week before we go to more muscle confusion next week, oh joy.

Have a great weekend.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Capturing Life

There is some debate as to how much time we view life through a lens instead of just absorbing the moment. Meaning, we are so concerned with "capturing" a shot that we miss the moment of laughter, concern, etc... I agree.
I know that sometimes even I am more concerned about "tweeting" something than just sitting in the moment for a while. I think it stems from us being experiential people, so when we experience something that touches us we want to share that event with others. There must be a balance.
We ARE created to share life together, but there needs to be a tension between virtual sharing and real life sharing. I hope I don't miss a "first" of Annie or Davis because I'm updating a blog, or cropping a photo, or checking twitter. But I also am thankful that our extended family and friends can also share in some of our experiences because of our modern technology.
All that to say, yesterday I took a picture of Davis on my phone while he was swinging, and I am so thankful for the quick pic that was captured.

On twitter I put the caption, Please let me know when it gets better than this...
This picture captures Davis in so many ways. Happy, big blue eyes, ready for the ride and full of life.
I'm sorry my phone couldn't capture the scream and laughing as he went swinging through the air.... but I'm also really glad. It was a moment for a father and his son.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Pics

Haven't put any pics up in a while.
So here is Davis today in his overall shorts.
Too cute.



Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Mulch, wedding and a sermon

Two of these go together....
can you figure it out....

Both in spreading mulch and a sermon sometimes you are spreading a bunch of *crap*. That may not be appropriate, but that is the only thing I could come up with to title this post!

This last week we did get some new mulch around our house. It was a very rewarding day of work. It's measurable! You start off with your yard looking unfinished and after a couple trucks of mulch your yard looks new. Plus it was a beautiful day to work.
Saturday we went to a wedding that was held in a backyard garden and it was really cool. So many great anaolgies. Katie and I asked ourselves at the wedding, "Do you think every person, at every wedding reflects back on their wedding?" I sure hope so.

Sunday was definitely a work day for me. 13 hours later (with an hour lunch break) I wrapped a day of small group training, teaching a newly married class, setting up for a reception, Leaders Appreciation Reception, leading worship at that, then home.

Yesterday I had the chance to teach at Crossroad. Crossroad is Fellowship's weekly worship service for college students from the community. It is one of the toughest places to teach because of the excellence of teaching from Greg Pinkner. I wrapped up the sermon on the mount last night and felt good about it at the end of the night. Here is a link to the website where you can listen if you are interested.JC SERMON I am NOT doing this for self promotion, but I really can't recommend the other sermons enough. They will completely change how you view the sermon on the mount. My challenge was to wrap it all up.

Ok. there you go. Weekend recap. Beautiful week ahead.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

4 weeks!

So 4 weeks from right now we will be a family of four!
That is so hard to believe.
4 weeks from now, all things going as planned, Annie will be crying, eating, being swaddled, held... HERE!
So exciting.
We are going to the hospital today to preregister. Basically you take care of all of the the insurance jazz today, so the day you come in paper work is not something you have to deal with.

Easter may have been a rough week to start the revamped challenge, but I still went down 1 pound.

Off to the hospital to register!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Advertisers should get paid more

If you are in advertising you should get paid more! I don't see how you come up with such amazing material as this...
I saw this on a friends blog.
"it's just like a mini mall."
I think i might take their logic and come up with my own slogan..."Fellowship's College Ministry, it's just like heaven."
I think its a fair comparison.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Great Easter Weekend

We had a very full Easter Weekend with lots of family and friends.
On Saturday there was a shower for Chase Pattison and his fiance Catherine at my parents house.
Then on Sunday we obviously went to church. GREAT Easter sermon at Fellowship. God takes our place! Penal Substitionary atonement- a big deal! 2 Kings 6- seriously was our text. Listen online if you get a chance. www.fefc.com In a world that is buying into a cheaper and cheaper gospel, and a gospel that is really no gospel at all, I am so thankful for Fellowship. Easter is only amazing and glorious if the wrath of God is real. Not imagery or an idea, but real! But thankfully Christ bore that wrath on the cross and conquered sin.
We hosted Easter dinner at our house with all of our families and it was really fun. Here a couple of pics of the day.



Monday, April 13, 2009

Speaker

Occasionally I get the opportunity to speak at church "events" aka. disciplenows, retreats, camps.
For anyone looking, if I am not available, I highly recommend this guy.
Powerful stuff.
I hope Davis and Annie get to hear top notch stuff like this when they are older.
Thanks to Scott Bradford at Fellowship for showing me this guy.

Ignatius from travis hawkins on Vimeo.
Kidding. Of course.

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Back in Action


So a little BabyFat Update. I have been very pleased to "maintain" my original 30 lbs over the last couple of weeks. I might have put on a couple pounds one weekend, then lose it the next week, sort of a small yo yo. But I have tried to monitor it so the yo yo never gets stuck down!
Anyway, I need your help, and by that I mean I need some virtual accountability. Annie is born 5 weeks from today! I have pretty much coasted the last couple of weeks making sure I could maintain this weight. Well I want to lose a few more pounds before Annie comes. So the goal I'm setting this time is... 10/5. 10 pounds in the next 5 weeks. 2lbs a week. A little quicker than last time, but I'm hoping to really lock down and do this.
So there you go. Check back on Thursdays for your update.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Almost tragic

Saturday while we were out in the yard, hanging a flag, planting a tree, and planting bushes Allie ran away. She has not done this in at least 2 years. We were standing in the front yard and the next thing you know she is on a bee line running HARD. I thought she was just going to do this big loop that she normally makes, but not this time. Allie? Allie? ALLIE? GONE.

All we can figure is she saw something and bolted for "it". After calling for her for 10 minutes Katie decided she would go drive around and look for her. After 15 minutes of looking... nothing. Finally, after another 20 minutes of looking Katie found her at an apartment complex at the end of our neighborhood.
It's interesting that the thing that made us sad, was not losing Allie (at least for me), but rather Davis' relationship with Allie. He loves Allie, he beats her, he grabs her, and she just sits there. I can't imagine having to try to start over with a new dog. Obviously this will have to happen at some point, but preferably not 5 weeks before Annie comes into the world!


Davis was also a big help in the yard. Mainly he walked around with his little shovel screaming. Love that hat.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Life savers

Toys. No
Life savers. Yes.




Thursday, April 2, 2009

Keeping Track

For those of you watching the little ticker tape at the top, you see that we are under 6 weeks till Annie arrives. (For clarification, Katis has a scheduled c-section the week before her due date, thus subtract 1 week).
5 weeks 6 days! That is crazy! But we are so excited.
The final pieces of furniture were either assembled while watching American Idol on Tuesday, or were ordered on Monday. So everything is wrapping up.

While we are getting excited about Annie, Davis is mastering calculus. We're proud of you son.

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

So exciting

So the big news just keeps on coming!!
For the last couple of months I have been in contact with a church in Little Rock, Arkansas about taking a position as a satelite campus/teaching pastor and we are SO excited to announce that the position is a go!! The church is called LifeWay Church and it is doing really well right now.

They have started 1 satelite campus to test the waters to see if it would work and it is growing as quickly as the main campus. So I will be the pastor of the second satelite campus! I am really looking forward to working with this church and the incredible staff they have assembled there! Much of my job will be offering leadership to this satelite campus and teaching on weeks that we do not have a video message! Many churches have gone to this set up and it is working incredibly well. The good news is that LifeWay is being very generous to us because of the baby on the way, so I will begin being employed there June 1st but we will not actually move until the end of August! Just lots of conference calls, skype and emails!
For those of you still reading... April Fools!
Seriously. April Fools. I'll say it one more time, just in case you are a skim reader. April Fools.
We aren't going anywhere! I love Fellowship and the opportunities it opens for me.
Just a little fun on this beautiful April 1st.
Have a great day.
*to my knowledge there is no LifeWay church in Little Rock. That was completely fictional and my brain child. If they are doing well and starting satelite campuses that is completely coincidence, but good for them.