Before I show you more pictures of one of the most adorable babies on the planet, I'm happy to report that Stephanie and Sam were able to come home this morning due to both of them being in such good health. Praise God!
First off, let me apologize for neglecting my blog. It has not been intentional but more a lack of being intentional. Work has been high-pressured and stressful the past couple of months and the last thing I have felt like doing in the evenings, after the kids are in bed, is to exert brain power to compose a blog post. I kept saying, "Not tonight". That has turned into a month of no posts.
Instead, I spent a lot of time on Hulu.com vegging out, too much time. That's why we got rid of the TV. So I'm going to have cut back on that.
My wife, as opposed to me, has been a posting maniac. So in this blog glob (it's a new bloggity phrase I'm trying to coin - meaning to throw together a post composed of many different topics or points), I'm going to link to many of her posts so I don't have to do as much work, the lazy man that I am.
Currently (about 3:00 p.m.), I'm sitting in my wife's hospital room, with her laptop. She and Sam are geting in some snuggle time. The last time we were here over two years ago for Ellie, Internet access was not available. Now they have free WiFi - yeah!
Just thought I would let y'all know that Sam just christened me while I was changing his diaper. Luckily my hand was in the right vicinity and I was able to use it as a shield, so only my hand was christened and not my shirt.
Our fourth child and third son, Samuel, was born this morning at 8:05 a.m. EST. He weighed in at 7 lbs. 12 ozs.
This past Tuesday morning I had just finished shaving. I pushed down on the nob-and-rod (my super technical term) to raise the plug to release the water in the sink. I did not hear the normal water-gurgling and slurping sound of a sink-full of water going down the drain pipe. Instead I heard the sound of water splashing onto the bottom of the bathroom cabinet.
NOT a good thing! I immediately pulled on the nob-and-rod to stop the draining of the sink and opened the door to reveal the inside of the cabinet. Sure enough, everything was soaked. About six rolls of toilet paper had to be thrown away. I used the trash can to catch the rest of the water so that I could drain the sink and then turned off the water to the faucets - I did not have time to investigate as I had to shower and dress for work.
That evening I came home and gave things a closer look to see if something had become loose. It turns out that the plastic drain pipe had sheared off where it met the sink - no amount of twisting was going to fix that. So, after the kids were in bed, off I went to Lowes, where I procured the replacement parts, this time in metal (don't want this to happen again).
Due to the way the pipes are under the sink, I had to cut off a couple of inches from the end of the new tail piece. I don't know if was due to the stress of being cut or was a manufacturer's defect, but once I got the new parts installed and tested, I discovered a leak. The leak was not any any of the connections I made, but where the tail piece entered the pipe body through which the plug lever enters (anyone have a more technical name for this?) - i.e. that's the way it came of of the box.
I couldn't believe it. Well, that was it for that evening. Since I had sawed off a portion of the tail piece, I couldn't return it. As I saw it, I had three options:
This is just a small but neat thing to share, about how God works in little ways.
As part of our bedtime routine, we read the Bible together as a family (except for Ellie because she's not quite old enough to sit still through the reading). We have chosen to read straight from the actual Bible rather than a children's Bible. We are currently working our way through the gospel of Mark and should be done fairly soon.
Stephanie and I decided that we wanted our kids to be involved in worship services with the adults at an early age, rather than having them in children's church. So, when one of the children turns three, that means they start to stay in with us during the worship portion of the service and then go to children's church. When they turn five, then they start to stay in through the whole service with us. This means that Will now stays in the service with us and listens to the sermon.
Well, today our pastor mentioned that he would be finishing our current series in 1 John next week and that next series, to be given by another man in the church, would be about the life of Jesus, in the gospel of Mark! How cool is that?!
God has worked it out so that we as a family will have read over the material that will be covered on Sunday mornings, giving Will a foundation upon which the sermons can build upon. Isn't God awesome?
On Friday, the boys and I had our second annual backyard camp. Here's the link for the first annual backyard camp. After I arrived home and changed clothes, we proceeded to set up the tent. Since the tent we have is a small two-person tent and was cramped last year, I borrowed a larger tent from some friends.
After supper, we lit a small fire in an old charcoal grill we have. We brought out the marshmallows, graham crackers and chocolate bars, and fixed ourselves some good s'mores. The boys played with flash lights for a bit and gathered sticks to throw onto the fire. Then it was into the house to brush teeth, put on pajamas, go potty and read the Bible.
Since we were only camping in the backyard, as a special treat for the boys, I ran an extension cord out to the tent and we watched one of the boys' videos on the laptop. Once the video was done, so were we. We all snuggled into our sleeping bags. For the boys I had brought out a large seat cushion each to sleep on. I slept on two thin camping pads. That was more than I had last year, but still was not that comfortable. If we start doing this a lot, I may have to look into either an air mattress or a camping cot. Anyway, we slept away the night, undisturbed by any night critters, unlike last year.
Around seven a.m., Ben wakes up, sits up and declares, "It's morning." I told him yes, it was, but that it was not time to get up yet - it had gotten quite cool (around 40) during the night and I was all snugged in my sleeping bag. That lasted about thirty minutes until Will declared that he had to pee, at which time we donned our sweatshirts and shoes, and headed indoors.
The boys really had a good time and so did I, despite the few aches I came away with :-).
I'm laying in my bed this afternoon, taking a nap, half in and out of consciousness. I hear Ben open the door of his room and go into the bathroom. The sound of tinkling reaches my ears, followed by a declaration from Ben,
This is a book review on The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer.
This is a review on the book, Out of Islam by Christopher Alam, which I stated I would do last November. I've tried to do this two or three times, but have gotten into too much detail each time. I have to keep in mind that I'm doing a book review and not a book report. Hopefully, using a section title of "Synopsis" will help keep me focused.
I stripped off my jacket and tossed it into the crowd. "The power of God is upon my jacket," I shouted.
The healing virtue of the Lord Jesus was so powerful upon my jacket as it was being passed around through the crowd that people were being healed the instant they touched the jacket.
