Hmmmm...

With the advent of facebook I have been thinking about shutting this thing down. I rarely blog and my readership is next to nothing. The original intent was to document our adoption of Emma regardless if anyone read it or not. It was a way for me to be able to think out loud amongst a community of people who were also going through the same ups and owns of an adoption. People like Trisha and Cheri inspired me to start blogging. Those two were so good at what they did and they were able to post on a regular and the quality of their posts kept the bar high. With me I was more laxed and not as vigilant. So I am thinking of letting this blog go. Maybe I'll keep it up but I find myself on facebook more often as it is less taxing and lets me post in one sentence incriments as opposed to paragraphs at a time. Ahhh...For the time being I will leave this be and post on occasion but that might be it. Hopefully I can find a use for this space. Maybe something will occur and I will get riled up...or maybe I'll post a one sentence blurbs on facebook instead. Any thoughts? Till then find me on facebook and friend me and Tera. I'm the one holding the chocolate covered bacon. Mmmm....bacon

Merry Christmas Everyone

Oswald Chambers wrote in My Utmost for His Highest for Dec. 25: His Birth and our New Birth

"'Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name "Immanuel," which is translated, "God with us"'"(Matthew 1:23).

"His Birth in History. 'That Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God' (Luke 1:35). Jesus Christ was born into this world, not from it. He did not emerge out of history; He came into history from the outside.

"Jesus Christ is not the best human being the human race can boast of — He is a Being for whom the human race can take no credit at all. He is not man becoming God, but God Incarnate — God coming into human flesh from outside it. His life is the highest and the holiest entering through the most humble of doors. Our Lord's birth was an advent — the appearance of God in human form.

"His Birth in Me. 'My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you …' (Galatians 4:19). Just as our Lord came into human history from outside it, He must also come into me from outside. Have I allowed my personal human life to become a 'Bethlehem' for the Son of God? I cannot enter the realm of the kingdom of God unless I am born again from above by a birth totally unlike physical birth.

"'You must be born again' (John 3:7). This is not a command, but a fact based on the authority of God. The evidence of the new birth is that I yield myself so completely to God that 'Christ is formed' in me. And once 'Christ is formed' in me, His nature immediately begins to work through me.

"God Evident in the Flesh. This is what is made so profoundly possible for you and for me through the redemption of man by Jesus Christ."

Oswald Chambers also wrote:

"The most important aspect of Christianity is not the work we do, but the relationship we maintain and the surrounding influence and qualities produced by that relationship. That is all God asks us to give our attention to, and it is the one thing that is continually under attack.

"Let's bless Jesus Christ this Christmas and in the coming year by surrendering our lives fully to Him and acknowledging that the most important time of every day is the time we spend with Him."

God Bless you all on this very important day.

Peace.

Jason

Quick post

These pictures are about a year apart, the bottom picture was taken a few days ago. Do you think she has grown a bit? Yeah, me too.

hey

Happy Thanksgiving!

These past few weeks have been havoc at home. Mostly no-fun unscheduled stuff. The brunt of it is hopefully over and I will be sparing you the details.
We are gearing up for Christmas this week. Stuff like putting up the tree and figuring out what we are going to do with the extra wreath we have. I am working too much since both my jobs are greatly affected my the holidays. I did get to head to the garage and fire up the snowblower today which was awesome. Unfortunately there was no snow on the ground. I just went out there to make sure that it starts up since I haven't had it running since last March.
I haven't been on here for a few weeks and that makes me a bad blogger. I just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving and I hope that it is spent with the ones you love.
Blessings.

Jason

No Surprise

Barak is president. This comes as no surprise. Start praying for him and the administration he chooses. He is going to have to make some hard choices. I feel these will be very interesting times ahead of us. How interesting? I don't know. What do I know. It's just a hunch.
Anyhoo... Fall is upon us and we Minnesotans are bracing for some snow this week. Not much and it probably won't stick but it'll be the first.
As for the daily/weekly happenings check Tera's blog. I have been too busy lately to maintain this blog.
But before I go I would like to share a couple of sites this week.

Both these families have daughters who have been diagnosed with cancer. These little ones have been on my heart as of late. Please visit their site/blog and let them know you are praying for them.

http://ferrickfamilypromise.blogspot.com/

http://www.riggsfamilyblog.com/


Thank you

Revamped and updated

Thanks to Tera for updating my blog. It's been over a month and I figure I should post. Since then we went on a family trip and Emma turned 2. First the trip. We went to Bayfield Wisconsin. I think that in all the years we have been there this has to have been the warmest one yet. Normally the mornings have a hard frost which was absent this year. It was still beautiful nonetheless. The greatest thing about the trip this year is that we had Emma with us. She had such a good time and was so well behaved despite the long trips in the truck. Tera and I love going to Bayfield and we look forward to going with Emma in the years to come.

The week before Bayfield we celebrated Emma's 2nd birthday. Since her birthday was during the trip we decided to have her party the week prior. We had pizza which is Emma's favorite food. The cake was great, the cupcakes were awesome (thanks T) and Emma had a ball. The theme was The Backyardigans and Uniqua was the "special guest".

This is Uniqua. This was was before her moment in the spotlight.

This is Emma saying "goodbye" to Uniqua.

This is Uniqua's "guts" all over the yard after Emma, Grace and Isabel threw down on Uniqua.

Emma turning 2 was a really big thing for me as her dad. Since her first 7 months of life were spent in Guatemala my parental clock feels to be off by about the same amount of time. This has made her 2nd birthday seem to have come up much too quickly. She has developed by leaps and bounds in the last year. Last year she learned to walk the week she turned 1. This year Tera and I are chasing her around the house. She is constantly talking letting us know all the names of people she knows. Calling out for grandma and grandma. And singing. Lots and lots of singing. Specifically, songs the Laurie Berkner Band which has caused me to sing the very same songs. What can I do? They are well written songs and they're super catchy and super fun.
Till next time.

Stuff, Stuff and more Stuff

Since I last posted we have been busy, busy. I won't bore you with the details. So here is the fun stuff. I am starting the fall clean up. I will probably wait until after Emma's birthday to put the patio furniture away.
We went to the Minnesota State Fair. I'm not going to get into the details of what I ate but I will tell you that one of the new foods this year was called "Pig Lickers". Basically this was apple wood smoked bacon that is covered in chocolate and sea salt. This is an indicator of how health conscience state fairs can be. By the way, it tasted good. Real good.
For me the highlight of the fair was when I took Emma on the carousel. I could have done that all day. She was all smiles and giggles the entire time.
Speaking of giggles. Emma was on the bed in our bedroom the other day playing and I decided to head to the closet to change shirts. As I was between shirts I heard a little giggle behind me. Emma was looking at me without a shirt on and she started laughing. I took this as Emma telling Pops to lay off the state fair food and consider a few sit ups or push ups or something-ups. Aargh.
For now we are slowly preparing for Emma's upcoming birthday and then our annual family trip this October. Finally the temps are falling and my beloved Autumn is on it's way. In the wise words of Napoleon Dynamite: "Yeessss..."

With Great Sadness

Tera's grandmother passed away this week. It was quite unexpected. She was one of the sweetest people I have ever met. Everyone really misses her. Please pray for the family during this time of sadness and loss of this very beloved and special lady.

Jet Bridge-1 Jason- 0

I was at work at the airport on Friday and I was walking beneath the jet bridge that led to the jet I was working on. As I emerged from underneath the jet bridge I raised up (too early) and laid my noggin into the bottom of the bridge. I fell, bled, received 8 stitches and a pretty nice bump on my head to boot. Good times.

Fun with phones...

This week was rough one as far as work goes... I'll delve into what happened at a later time.

On to other things. I put off buying a cell phone until we started the adoption process. When we did buy one I opted for the entry level phone. No bells or whistles. When the contract ended I chose to buy a new one. This one was more souped up than the last. Like most people I have become accustomed to owning a phone and I now have a dozen reasons why I need one verses want one.
It was a hot today here in Minnesota. Other than going out for a walk with Emma we stayed in most of the day. So Emma and I started to play around with my phone. Here are the results: