Grace and Glory

Musings from the Threshold

Monthly Archives: June 2010

Birthday Season Has Begun!

Note: I finished this post and thought I had posted it yesterday, but discovered today that it hadn’t posted (or saved my final draft). So here’s another try.

Andrew’s arrival on May 1 extended birthday season by one month. Prior to his arrival, all of our birthdays fell between June 1 and September 8. Birthday season is full of fun, good food, and lots of cake and ice cream!

This year we are spreading out the four June birthday parties by celebrating them on the four weekends. The birthday person will still get to request the dinner of their choice on their actual birthday, and the cake of their choice for their party. Should be fun!

Our sweet Grace turned 7 on Tuesday. You can read the story of her birth here and here, if you like birth stories. We are so thankful for Grace and the joy that she brings to our family.

Grace’s requested birthday dinner was chicken salad and refried beans – what a combination. We added in peas, corn, and grape tomatoes. Josiah, Barak, and I also made a cheesecake on Tuesday that we baked in two pie pans; we had one on Grace’s birthday and one on Stephen’s.
Happy Birthday, Grace!

And Stephen turned 3 on Wednesday! I haven’t managed to get his birth story written out yet, but maybe in the next year I’ll get it done. This little guy gives us many chuckles and much sunshine.

The first word out of Stephen’s mouth when asked what he wanted for his birthday meal? Salad! And he meant it; the boy loves salad and will usually eat it first if it is available. We rounded out his meal with pizza, which was his second request.
Happy Birthday, Stephen!

Andrew – 5 weeks!

It amazes me that Andrew is already 5 weeks old (yesterday). And at the same time, he feels so much a part of our family, it’s hard to imagine life without him. He has a very sweet personality and is super cuddly. We are so thankful for him!

Andrew’s pediatrician called on Thursday with the results from Andrew’s chromosomal analysis, which she said looked good. They check for a wide range of anomalies, and he doesn’t have any of those for which they check. We have an appointment with her on Tuesday, and I’m looking forward to seeing what she thinks of how Andrew is doing. Her thinking today was that we would be watching his development, etc, to see if it’s just his personality to be a laid back little guy.

We had a four week post-partum check on Wednesday and Andrew weighed in at 7# 14oz, which is almost a pound in a week. Go baby go! He’s now big enough to fit in the one-size pocket diapers I bought in the spring, though he looks a little pear-ish in them because they’re not very trim at this point. But I’m thrilled to be able to use them for him.
(May 27)
He also has two all-in-one cloth diapers that are more trim. I took him outside the last Wednesday to get a few pictures of him (outside because our new camera is broken and our old camera has no flash). Click on the picture to get a better look at his cuteness.

And here he is last night. Within an hour of exactly five weeks:

Barefoot Week

In honor of Soles4Souls Barefoot Week, it’s also Barefoot Week in the I Heart Faces’ photo challenge.

About Soles4Souls: Soles4Souls is a Nashville-based charity that collects shoes from the warehouses of footwear companies and the closets of people like you. The charity distributes these shoes free of charge to people in need, regardless of race, religion, class, or any other criteria. Since 2005, Soles4Souls has given away over 7 million pairs of new and gently worn shoes (currently donating one pair every 9 seconds.) The shoes have been distributed to people in over 125 countries, including Kenya, Thailand, Nepal and the United States. Soles4Souls has been featured in Runner’s World, Ladies’ Home Journal, National Geographic’s Green Guide, and The New York Times. It has appeared on CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, BBC, CNN and thousands of regional news outlets across North America. Soles4Souls is a 501(c)(3) recognized by the IRS and donating parties are eligible for tax advantages. Anyone can join our cause, and we need your help.

Our Andrew’s darling bare feet:

Words of Blessing and Encouragement

The path that leads to joy is a hard road. It’s hard for us, and it was hard for Jesus. It cost him his life. It may cost us ours.
~~ John Piper, Fifty Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die

To complain against God is in effect to deny His holiness and to say that He is somehow not fair and just. It is less injury to Him to deny His being than to deny the purity of it; the one makes Him no God, the other a deformed, unlovely, and a detestable God…He that saith God is not holy and right speaks much worse than he that saith there is no God at all.
~~ Stephen Churnock, 17th century

What our heavenly Father ordains is wise and good. What, then, my soul, is it best for thee to do? Learn first to be content with this divine order, and be willing, with Job, to receive evil from the hand of the Lord as well as good. Study next, to make the outgoings of the morning and the evening to rejoice. Praise the Lord for the sun of joy when it rises, and for the gloom of evening as it falls. There is beauty both in sunrise and sunset, sing of it, and glorify the Lord. Like the nightingale, pour forth thy notes at all hours. Believe that the night is as useful as the day. The dews of grace fall heavily in the night of sorrow. The stars of promise shine forth gloriously amid the darkness of grief. Continue thy service under all changes. If in the day thy watchword be labour, at night exchange it for watch. Every hour has its duty, do thou continue in thy calling as the Lord’s servant until he shall suddenly appear in his glory.
~~ Spurgeon