Thursday, September 27, 2007

A collection of pics

Where Nico spends 99% of her day. We call it cat tv.

Ever wondered where the phrase,"sticking your oar in" came from? I think I know.

Local summer medical staff. Experienced and ready to help. Doctor, nurse and 'blood guy'. Specializing in doll care.

A family first for us, amusement rides and village fairs, starting with the ferris wheel.

The ferris wheel went a lot faster than I remembered but we all enjoyed the ride and the view.

Down the giant slide with Daddy...two times!

This one was a favorite, the ever popular merry-go-round.

And now for something a little more daring...a dragon roller coaster ride!

Here we go! (Unseen is one of our son's girl playmates who we happened upon at the fair and wanted to go on some rides with him.) No wonder he could be so brave!

'Johnny Appleseed' checking the harvest. He also mentioned wanting a ladder like this for his new bed. Yeah, we'll get right on that!

The 2nd Annual Get-Lost-In-The-Corn-Maze-And-Take-A-Cheater-Path-To-Get-Out-The-Same-Day Victory Cheer

Monkey is 'still the one'.

An opportunity to pray

Felicity Margaret Piper

Thursday, September 20, 2007

And speaking of shopping across the border...

Here's what wonderfulness my shopping efforts afforded me last week.



Missing from the picture: paint trays, liners, and rollers, and let's see, two dozen eggs for $2.72 and some black oil sunflower seeds for the bird feeder. It was a good day. Even if I had to produce a driver's license and signature for the purchase of Advil Cold & Sinus from the Walmart Pharmacy counter, it was worth the process. I only paid $8.12 for 40 capsules. That's cheap and since my husband took the last two capsules to work this morning, it was a timely purchase.
And the Airwick refills are less than half of what our Walmart charges. And who wouldn't want to buy greeting cards at the American rate? The soap pump is a good catch that I've been meaning to have in our bathroom.
And the Bright Starts baby linking toys in the plastic canister are the best little toy ever. I highly recommend them as a baby gift!
My husband loves his peanut butter crackers and lo the pantry cupboards were bare this past week, so at 2/$3 I picked up two big packs. Those brown Sterilite storage baskets on the left are exactly what I've been looking for for our storage shelves in the laundry room. And at $2.17 each, I grabbed up the last four on the shelf!
The tablecloth pictured in the back row is a make-do for now. It's a reversible print and for $12.99, it will get me through the fall season. But I intend to keep looking as my tablecloths have dwindled down to only two and they both show signs of use, which is why I picked up that new tub of OxyClean. With baby "juices" looming on our horizon, I needed to restock that perfectly marvelous stain remover before the new bibs and burp clothes show up.
I don't think my husband can enter into the joys of my American shopping, that even a stroll through the grocery store brings a thrill to my heart. The brands I grew up with and the prices that make yummy stuff affordable. It's a perfect match.
Want some examples of what I'm talking about?

How about these three delicious imports?


Breakstone Cottage Cheese, best ever for firm yet creamy small curd. This is part of a four-pack of individual serving sizes which means you only open the one you're going to eat! Breakstone also makes the best sour cream.
The Milky Way bar is probably my favorite chocolate bar. Nougat with a layer of carmel enrobed in chocolate. The Three Musketeers bar is similar except it does not have the delicious carmel. Here in Canada the Mars bar is apparently the same as the Milky Way, but I have yet to try it.
And finally, Pepperfridge Farm frozen cakes. Yummy. The two we had most often at home were the Coconut and the Devil's Food which has a white frosting. And since my husband usually passes up on cake, I get to eat it all, one delicious piece at a time. The Coconut one pictured above was immediately cut in half and shared with my neighbor as it was her first introduction into Pepperfridge Farm cakes. She has since bought two more in the last week in subsequent border-crossing trips. I think I've hooked her!

Friday, September 14, 2007

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The Changing Face of the Church

This article by Richard Land entitled Growth in Orthodox Christian Faith has Roots in 'Global South' provides an interesting peek at who is currently making up the universal church and what changes will take place in the years to come.
Jason from Conversations In Calvinism wrote a similar post earlier in the year that he links back to here

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Avoiding Children

Being Cast as Predators by Tim Challies is about men being seen primarily as predators and what affect this has on children is along the same lines as what my husband and I have discussed before in our home.

As parents, we have a responsibility to protect our children from harm, while at the same time promoting an atmosphere of stability and security. My neighbor looks after a nine-year old girl amongst others, whose parents have become unbalanced in their parenting outlook. Due to fears of child-snatching and related crimes, they have created an unhealthy view of what it means to protect their child. Her outings have been severely limited to only what they can and will accompany her to and the childcare provider(my neighbor) has been warned repeatedly about not taking their daughter shopping to any malls or stores or other public arenas. Other mothers who are friends with this family have been disallowed to have this young girl accompany their families on special occasions. In discussing this with my neighbor, she sees this current style of parenting as overprotective and unreasonable.
We too are careful with our son, but I also trust in the Providence of God. We act responsibly yet we commit our son and ourselves into His care. The aforementioned parents are not believers and have allowed fear to rule in their hearts and have committed trust to no one but themselves.

That all being said, part of our carefulness is to choose carefully who our son associates with and to whom we ask to provide childcare for us. And my husband is not comfortable with asking young men to fulfill this need. I respect my husband's decision and so far this has not been an issue for us. Our son does not show fear around men of any age simply because in his innocence he is not aware of any potential danger coming from them or any other person. For now, as his parents, it is our job to be vigilant and allow him to experience life without such concerns.

Monday, September 10, 2007

Still moving...

It's been several months since I first watched this video of Paul Potts' performance on the British Talent show and yet it still brought tears to my eyes when I viewed it again today. I couldn't help but think that the indescribable thrill that millions of viewers like me have experienced is just a tiny foretaste of what heavenly worship and Christ's eternal presence will do for our souls for all eternity. It causes me to long for heaven in a new way.
Britains Got Talent-Paul Potts

Paul Potts' debut album One Chance is available here.

Sunday, September 02, 2007

My little man

Sunday afternoon on the river




Want to avoid buying foreign-made toys?

Here is a small sample of the type of kid's playthings you can make at home whilst assuming the role of Quality Control Manager. Then you can issue your own recalls!
Safe Toys You Can Make

Saturday, September 01, 2007

Strange Maps Indeed!

I decided to check out this website after reading about it in World magazine.
(And I thought they might be boring maps! LOL)

Does My Brazil Look Big in This?








Does God permit sin?

One of the contributers over at the Desiring God blog has posted a four-part series of posts taken from John Frame's book, The Doctrine of God. I'm linking to Part 3 Does God permit sin? but I think all of the posts are worth reading.