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Wednesday, September 24, 2008

season

Autumn is my FAVORITE time of year! I love the fall activities, like hayrides, pumpkin picking and bobbing for apples. I also love the weather, warm in the day and cool at night. I love sleeping with the windows open so our bedroom is cool, but snuggling up to Chad in our flannel sheets so we are toasty warm! I also love that my son has his birthday in October. I always thought that when he gets older, we can have crafts to do at his birthday parties like pumpkin painting. Fall is a great time of year!


We got a jump on the fall activities when Chad's parents took us all to a farm in New Jersey where they live. Just arriving made me feel giddy! I could see the pumpkins from the car and couldn't wait to get out!


We rode on a hayride to apple orchards and pumpkin picking patches. Eli wanted to desperately to kick the hay in the hayride. It was nice to see all of the different rows of different types of apples.


When we got to the pumpkin patch, Eli knew just what to do. All we did last year was go to fun fall activities so he was a pro! He found this big pumpkin and as we photographers were asking him to sit on one or between them, he decided to straddle one.


Of course Chad had to get in on the fun, showing Eli how it is done! As you can see, Eli is in the background having his own fun!

In the above picture and the one before it in the background, Eli is holding a gourd. Wherever he goes, he usually picks one thing to hold onto the whole time, as if for comfort or something. Usually it is a rock. On this day it was a gourd. Poppy nicknamed it Gordy. Gordy still sits on our counter and Eli likes to hold it.

We had a lot of fun and it seems that Eli loves this time of year too. I try to tell him his birthday is coming up soon, but of course time is something that kids don't really understand fully until they are older. He is just starting to be able to sing the happy birthday song, so that is a start. :)

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

heaven

Sometimes in life, you get a little personalized taste of what heaven must be like. For me, it is watching my husband and son bond.

Sundays are my favorite day of the week. We go to church in the early morning and it never disappoints because our pastor is awesome and God is in that place so evidently. We then come home, Eli naps and I take my weekly nap as well. And now, because of the season we are in, we add FOOTBALL to the Sunday mix and it makes for one fantastic day!!

This past Sunday, Eli woke up from his nap, but was still sleepy. When we came downstairs, Chad was in and out of sleep on the couch so I plopped Eli on him and they both instantly fell asleep again. It was so nice watching that. I haven't seen it since Eli was an infant. Heaven!



Monday, September 22, 2008

proud

Yesterday, in a 94 degree pool, Chad was baptized by our awesome pastor, Chris Swansen. Chad wanted it to be a quiet affair, so it was just our immediate family and 18 other people that decided that yesterday was the day for them also. I am so proud of my hubby for doing this, as he felt the pull of the Lord nudge him into it. That was all he needed, a nudge. Chad is a wonderful spiritual leader of our household and he just such an amazing example for me, his wife. I am so proud of him. Here are pictures and video to follow.



Friday, September 19, 2008

color

What color are you?
Red? Blue?
What color do you feel?
Orange? Teal?
What are the purposes of color?
What do they mean?
Let the experts tell us.
Gray is the color of neutrality, neither subject nor object, neither inner nor outer, neither tension or relaxation. Gray feels as though it is not colored, not dark, not light a separation between two distinct entities, a demilitarized zone free from stimulus. Gray communicates an element of non-involvement or concealment. Its a color that remains uncommitted and uninvolved.



Blue is the color of calmness, repose and unity, symbolically the color of sky and ocean. Looking at blue relaxes the central nervous system blood pressure, pulse and respiration rate all go down, which allows regenerative systems in the body to work on healing. When folks are ill, the physiologic need for blue actually increases! The physiologic associations with blue are those of tranquility. The psychological associations are of contentment, gratification and being at peace.

Beyond its symbolic associations with nature and growth, green is the color of elastic tension, often associated with the desire for improved conditions: the search for better health, a useful life, social reform. It expresses the will in operation, firmness, constancy and persistence. It is a color that a person who possesses or wishes to possess high levels of self-esteem responds to strongly. Green is associated with many forms and degrees of control, not only in the sense of directed drives, but also as detailed accuracy in checking and verifying facts, as precise and accurate memory, as clarity of presentation, critical analysis and logical consistency all the way up to abstract formalism.


Physiologically, red makes blood pressure, pulse and respirations rates go up its an energy-expending color. Red's associations are with vitality, activity, desire, appetite and craving. Symbolically, red is blood, conquest, masculinity, the flame of the human spirit.
It is the impulse towards active doing, towards sport, struggle, competition, eroticism and enterprising productivity. Red it impact of the will or force of will as distinct from the green elasticity of the will. The person who favors red wants his own activities to bring him intensity of experience and fullness of living.

Where red stimulates, yellow suggests. It can elevate body rates as red does, but its effect is less stable. Yellow is primarily the color of happiness, cheerfulness, expansiveness, lack of inhibition. It is the welcome warmth of the sun and the glow of a spiritual halo. While calming and relaxing, the color does suggest a desire for change, that things are never quite at rest people who favor yellow may be very productive, but that productivity often occurs in fits and starts.


A combination of red and blue, violet attempts to unify the impulsive conquest of red and the gentler surrender of blue, becoming representative of identification. Purples are mystical, suggesting sensitive intimacy, union, enchantment, the blurring of thought, desire and reality. Violet represents a longing for wishes to be fulfilled and a desire to charm others. "Violet can mean identification as an intimate, erotic blending, or it can lead to an intuitive and sensitive understanding." Because it is so strongly associated with the idea of the world as a magical place and the need for wish-fulfillment, a preference for violet can communicate some degree of vulnerability or insecurity, perhaps a need for approval.

Symbolic of roots, hearth, home and family security, brown is a darkened mixture of red and yellow, with reduced qualities of these colors. The impulses of brown are not as volatile as red, not as restless as yellow yet the color has subtler warm, welcoming and sensuous qualities. When brown is favored, it suggests an increased need for physical ease and sensuous contentment, for release from discomfort.


Black represents the absolute boundary beyond which life ceases, and so expresses the idea of nothingness, of extinction. Black is the No as opposed to the Yes of white. White and black are the two extremes, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

We can choose to be black, but the Lord can help us become white. :)

What color are you? Let me know! I am brown. :)

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

sing

Scene: Driving in the car on the way home from the park, listening to kids' bible songs on CD.

Car Stereo: (singing) "Everybody ought to knoooooooooooow, everybody ought to knooooooooooow, everybody ought to knoooooooooow, who Jesus iiiiiiiiiis."

Mommy: (singing) "Everybody ought to knoooooooooooow, everybody ought to knooooooooooow, everybody ought to knoooooooooow, who Jesus iiiiiiiiiis."

Elijah: "Stop, stop, stop, Mommy. Stop."

Mommy: "Do you want Mommy to stop singing?"

Elijah: "No singing Mommy, no singing."

Moral of the story: When your own child tells you to shut up because your singing is so bad......it is time to get singing lessons. :)