The Case for Early Marriage in Christianity Today

This article is a must read! Read the whole thing and share your thoughts!

Baptist Press article about City Uprising!

Susan does an amazing job of keeping you up to speed with you all up to speed with family stuff on this blog. From time to time I try to keep you in the loop on church planting life. For the latest, check out this article about City Uprising from Baptist Press.

Pictures from vacation are coming I'm sure!

Vacation!

We board a plane in 5 hours! We are VERY ready for a vacation! Freddy T. and I were like kids the night before Christmas last night. Come Sunday or Monday I'll be with a computer daily. I'll try to give vacation updates. I've missed blogging. My personal computer is still without internet. Pray for us today. Freddy says it's going to be like Christmas Vacation (the movie) with all 5 of us boarding a plane.... those poor passengers who didn't know who they were flying with when they bought their ticket!

Help the Boyd's sell their House!

One of the couples from Clarksville that we asked to come and serve with us in NYC were Corey and Leann Boyd. Around the beginning of June the Boyd's moved to NYC trusting that their house back in Clarksville would sell. If their house sells it will sure them up financially to serve in NYC for at least two years. If you know of anyone looking for a home in Clarksville please share with them about the Boyd's house. It is an awesome historic home in Downtown Clarksville. Check out the house here.

Spread the word, say a prayer, help us sell this house for the sake of gospel advancement in NYC and beyond!

Catching Up

I'll try to do a week's worth of post in one...

Today we went to the playground in Central Park at E. 96th St. It was our first trip to the East Side, walking just the 4 of us that is. They have Sandbox Programs in Central Park this summer where each day of the week at different playgrounds there is a kids music program. I was excited that I actually remembered reading about it and made a plan to be there today. There was a crowd.
Jack was totally uninterested. He sat with me for 5 minutes while they were setting up and said "ok, it's over." And this is where he spent the rest of the concert.

In the sand! With the 5 other kids not into the program

Afterwards he just played.

I couldn't believe he jumped on this thing surrounded by other kids. He spent the whole time yelling "excuse me" because that girl in the front wasn't moving.Then he climbed to the top of this thing and showed me his muscles.

Lillie and Elliott slept a little at the park. Jack was worn out by the time we got home. After a few minutes had passed since I put them all down this is what I found.
Jack insisted on napping with ALL the pillows... and his red chair. And he usually falls asleep with his green blanks over his head.Elliott.. wide awake!Lillie... wide awake!

This afternoon Jack and Lillie waited in front of the elevator for Freddy T. to get home.
The rest are just a few more pictures from today and over the past week.

Freddy T. and Jack playing Memory while I cleaned the kitchen.Elliott and Freddy T. hanging out.
The first picture of them all 3 sitting togetherBest Friends!

Small Crash

The computer I use at home is not working. I don't mean I can't get on the internet, I mean I can't even click on anything to try to get on the internet. I'm not sure if it can be revived or not. I can still use Freddy's computer when I get a free second in the evenings, but I'm afraid my blogging will slow down quite a bit since I don't have access during the day. I'll do my best though.

I'll leave you with this.

Yesterday I was making baby food. Jack was helping and Elliott was in his exersaucer playing. When it's time to start the blender I let Jack know and he quickly leaves the room because it's too loud for him. A second or two later I heard him talking to Elliott so I poked my head out of the kitchen to see what he was doing this is what I heard.

Note: Elliott was not crying and Jack had his hands cupping his face.

"Elliott, you don't have to be sad. I'm going to take care of you until that blender goes off."

Twins: 8 Months

8 months today! Today was the most challenging photo shoot. Lillie is sitting up and got a hold of the sign and tried to eat it. Then Jack colored on it with yellow chalk so by the time it was Elliott's turn the sign was nasty. Elliott can't sit up yet so he is still laying back on the pillows or quickly falling forward. They are doing really well. They are sleeping 12 hours a night and taking two decent naps during the day. They eat food at every meal. So far Lillie is the better eater. She'll eat anything. Elliott will too but he makes lots of funny faces when he is trying something new. I'm still making all their food. It's something fun for me and Jack to do together while they take their morning naps. We usually have one big baby food making morning every 2 or 3 weeks.
These pictures are nothing fancy. I've only posted several extras because I thought they were funny. A little glimpse into our picture taking. Maybe next month Lillie and Elliott can go outside and sit at the park for their picture, we've had to use the bed as a prop each time. They are a little dark. I should have tried this earlier this morning, now it's cloudy outside. We don't have good lighting in our room unless it's sunny outside.

Lillie was laughing at Elliott in this picture

Lillie is showing off in this picture. She's sitting up and poor Elliott has to lay back

Ok, I'll give it a try... I'm not going to let her show me up!

Date Day

Freddy and I went out on an all day date today. We didn't have any set plans when we left this morning other than running by a fabric store real quick. We decided about 30 minutes before the game started to run up to the Bronx and see if we could get tickets for the game. We got to the stadium in the 3rd inning. The box office only had $300 seats left so that was clearly out of the question. After a few minutes of looking for people selling tickets we found a guy with 2 tickets and got them for $3o each... the face value was $175! Score! His firm had season tickets and he was only using 1 of the 3. We had a great time and the weather was perfect! Yankees lost 7-6 but it was a lot of fun!

More From Jack

Jack, after being put in bed twice already, just came slowly walking out of his room with his puppy in hand and his green blanks (blanket) over his head. I sat here and watched him. He ran into his golf cart and the blanket fell off his head. I kind of started smiled, he began laughing real hard and this is what came out of his mouth...

"I'm laughing at you. Mommy, did you know God made garage doors, he made all of them, he made Gran and Gramp's, Nay Nay's, Dee Dee's, and Great Gran's. Oh look at these (the ABC letters from the refrigerator all piled up in a bucket) they are pretty, the animals are pretty.

That's where I put a stop to it. He was trying to distract me because he knew trouble was coming from getting out of the bed again. How do you not laugh at something like that? By the way, for those of you who knew about his obsession with garage doors in TN... he hasn't changed. We talk about them every day. He now puts a pillow over himself and says he put the garage door down. I don't know what made him come up with the idea that God made garage doors. He did I guess, but to my knowledge we haven't discussed that with him. I guess he's putting two and two together about what he's learning about God and the creation of things around him... or he's pulling this stunt again!

A First

The boys are all sleeping. Mommy and Lillie took our very first girl outing... to the grocery store. I had to document the first of many, many more Mommy and Lillie "dates."

Ummm....

(Jack standing by the chair with his hammer

and a wad of tape he's trying to "hammer" to the chair)

"Umm this tape is umm very tapey!"