not so natural food...

so this is what lori and i do best... besides coming up with ways we're the same & ways our husbands are the same...we can make some mean oatmeal chocolate drop cookies... man, they're good. and they're the best after midnight....

we had a great time laughing and chatting as we made our addictive treat the other night... i think lori said, "i need to go to bed" a hundred times as we stood in her kitchen. i think that these are what cured lori's tooth ills. :) it's amazing what a good OD of chocolate and peanut butter can do for you.

the sacred ingredients

letting them dry...

soooo...we ate a few before they were done...

and we had a few the next morning for breakfast....lori's husband commented last night that he never did see one of those cookies. well, i guess we'll have to make another batch!

food art

lori took me to one of the best grocery stores i've ever laid eyes on... a whole foods market! it was absolutely beautiful! we weren't able to spend a ton of time in there (2 fussy kiddos and a busy day ahead...), but man, i could have spent all day in there! i was pretty amazed at their displays. it's just about artwork. produce isn't just in junky trays or plastic... it's all laid out appealing arrangements. ok, so you get the picture. ethan loved it too. he begged and begged to have his picture taken in front of the veggies....



i especially loved the chocolate display. this was right next to the delicious smelling cheese department. wow, it was some strong cheese! but look at this chocolate. yum.



you'd really have to eat a lot of fruits and veggies to make up for that chocolate. :) but apparently it's all natural or organic chocolate, so that makes it ok. :)

so after we left this all natural and organic market, we drove through mcdonald's. just doesn't seem right, does it?? haha. i hadn't had a mickey d's hamburger in a long time. and man, it was good. :)

some fun with lori's girls

just some shots from hanging out with lori's kids. i need to get some of lori's son on here... but here's some of the girls for now. they are precious. :)

a great welcome from lori's girls

the 2 yr. old takes ethan for a walk

"hey?! were you the one pushing my stroller?"

"well, it was the only way to keep you from fussing...
you act like you've got a tooth comin' in or something!"

cutie-pies if i've ever seen them...

show and tell

hey! did you hear about my new tooth?
come take a look at it!

can you see it? can you see it?
you can just see the tip on the left on the bottom of my mouth.
it better be worth all this pain.
what? you can't see it? ok, hang on...

ok, NOW can you see it?

top 40 jack bauer facts

thanks, amy, for telling me about the top 40 jack bauer facts! i stole this from amy's friend's website, who stole this from his friend's myspace page... so that explains all the capital letters. you then KNOW it did not originate from me!! but it's a peaceful sunday afternoon, and i really want a nap. so i'm leaving the capital letters in. you'd better like this...and that's a command from jack.


40) During the 18 months Jack Bauer was believed dead, CTU saved over $1 billion on ammunition.

39) If everyone on "24" followed Jack Bauer's instructions, it would be called "12".

38) Jack Bauer once forgot where he put his keys. He then spent the next half-hour torturing himself until he gave up the location of the keys.

37) Jack Bauer has been to Mars. That's why there's no life on Mars.

36) Jack Bauer and Chuck Norris were stuck in a room together once... After 3 minutes, Chuck Norris left crying without a scratch on him.

35) Jack Bauer helped U2 find what they were looking for

34) On Jack Bauer's Tax Returns, he has to claim the entire world as his dependants.

33) Guns don't kill people, Jack Bauer kills people.

32) It's no use crying over spilt milk...unless that was Jack Bauer's milk. Oh you are so screwed.

31) When Jack Bauer goes to the airport and the metal detector doesn't go off, security gives him a gun.

30) When Jack Bauer was a child, he made his mother finish his vegetables.

29) Jack Bauer once arm wrestled Superman. The stipulations were the loser had to wear his underwear on the outside of his pants.

28) If you're holding a gun to Jack Bauer's head, don't count to three before you shoot. Count to 10. That way, you get to live 7 seconds longer.

27) Taco Bell used to close at midnight, until Jack Bauer decided he wanted to have burritos at 2 am.

26) Jack Bauer is the leading cause of death in Middle Eastern men.

25) If Jack Bauer misspells a word, your dictionary is wrong.

24) Due to Jack Bauer, no one looks forward to the weekend anymore, they look forward to the weekend being over, and watching 24 on Monday.

23) Killing Jack Bauer doesn't make him dead. It just makes him angry.
22) Jack Bauer's calendar goes from April 2nd to March 31st – no one fools Jack Bauer.

21) Nobody says 'hit me' when Jack Bauer deals Blackjack.

20) If Jack Bauer was in a room with Hitler, Stalin, and Nina Meyers, and he had a gun with 2 bullets, he'd shoot Nina twice.

19) When President Palmer quit to start doing Allstate commercials, it took him 43 takes before he could stop saying, "You're in good hands with Jack Bauer".

18) Jack Bauer killed 93 people in just 4 days time. Wait…that is a real fact.

17) Jack Bauer doesn't miss. If he didn't hit you it's because he was shooting at another terrorist twelve miles away.

16) Jack Bauer got Helen Keller to talk.

15) Every mathematical inequality officially ends with "< Jack Bauer".

14) Simon Says should be renamed to Jack Bauer Says because if Jack Bauer says something then you better do it.

13) If you wake up in the morning, it's because Jack Bauer spared your life.

12) When Google can't find something, it asks Jack Bauer for help.

11) When Jack Bauer asks for your help, he's not asking.

10) There were originally five horsemen of the apocalypse. Jack Bauer said he would travel by foot.

9) Osama bin Laden's recent proposal for truce is a direct result of him finding out that Jack Bauer is, in fact, still alive.

8) Chuck Norris told Jack Bauer that he only killed 15 people because he ran out of bullets. Jack told him he only killed 93 people because he ran out of people.

7) After running out of ammo, Jack stood in the line of fire, took 3 shots to the chest, and used them to reload.

6) 1.6 billion Chinese are angry with Jack Bauer. Sounds like a fair fight.

5) Jack Bauer was never addicted to heroin. Heroin was addicted to Jack Bauer.

4) When the boogie man goes to sleep, he checks his closet for Jack Bauer.

3) Jack Bauer is the reason Waldo is hiding.

2) When life gave Jack Bauer lemons, he used them to kill terrorists. Jack Bauer hates lemonade.

1) Superman wears Jack Bauer pajamas.

tooth out, tooth in

bless lori's heart. she had her wisdom tooth pulled yesterday, and she expected to be in less pain once the useless thing was out of her mouth... but she is feeling pretty miserable. she wants to bounce right back to play with me and ethan (and just to get back to life in general!!), and she's trying her best... but oral surgery is no picnic. so please say a prayer for lori. pray that she will have patience with her recovery and pray that her recovery is swift. i'm glad to be able to be of some help around her house while i'm here.

on a more exciting note, baby boy has a little white dot on the bottom of his gums!!! it's about time!! i'll have to post pictures tomorrow if i can get one. praise the Lord that i can see a tooth because it's a little easier to deal with the crankiness when i know it's teething. he has not been too bad, but he's definitely crankier than usual (he must just miss his daddy!!). he slept fine last night and has taken some great naps today, so maybe he's gonna be a sleeping teether... ooooh that would be nice!

ethan and i went to visit kari today... what a cute house she and brad have! they've done a great job remodeling. we went to lunch and caught up. it was really nice to visit... i wish we could see her more often! we go way back... since 1st grade! that's about 20 years. man, that's a long time. here's a picture of kari with me and ethan. not sure what ethan's trying to say...



other than my visit to kari's, today was a lazy, rainy day. ethan and i took a big fat nap, and tonite we all watched olympics.

lori's kids are just so sweet....and that 2 year old is getting a good lesson in sharing all her things this week! lori brought down her old high chair, johnny jump up, and all her toys that she has shown no interest in in over a year for ethan to use while we're here... well, of course they are her favorite things right now. :) she is also very interested in ethan's sippy cups, and yesterday i caught her walking around with his pacifier in her mouth. :) ha. it was pretty cute. she is used to being the baby around the house. :) she is practicing this whole sharing thing, and it's a blessing to see her willingly give ethan her toys...

more stories about the kiddos later.

we made it!

we're heeeere! i'm sitting next to lori right this very minute. we've had a great evening. her kids are delightful and her husband is just how i remember him. ethan has done well, despite the crazy, flexible day we've had. he slept the entire time we were in the air, and he loved watching as we took off and landed. it was precious to see his fat little hand beating on the airplane window. we got off the plane and rode a train to the baggage area, and there was lori with her hot pink sign waiting to greet us!!! i saw it the second the elevator doors opened. (we'll post pictures of that later.) it was so wonderful to see her, and she really does look the same, though she is arguing with me right at this moment about that... i agree i still look 12, but that's pretty hard to argue with. anyway, we're really really tired, so i'll write more tomorrow.

leaaaaaaaaavin' on a jet plane...

all our bags are paaaaacked, we're ready to go...... that song has been playing through my head this morning.... i'm so excited!!! lori just called and she's on her way to target to get diapers for ethan and a pink neon sign for the airport... wow, we will feel so welcome! i have several things to do this morning before we go, so i've gotta make this short. i think i'll let ethan handle the goodbyes...



(that was "bye, i'm about to fly in my first airplane! hope you all have a great week!" in ethan sign language!)

2 days left!

i really hope i'm packed by this time tomorrow... i think i will be. i don't have to bring a ton of paraphernalia for ethan, thank goodness!! lori has likened herself to a grandmother preparing for her grandson to visit...i think she's right! she has dragged out entertaining equipment (exersaucer, johnny jump up... let's just call them gifts from God), washed toys, made baby food, bought diapers... she's the best. it's going to be such a blessing to sit at her feet and learn from a wife and mother with more years under her belt (though with our schedule, it doesn't look like we'll be doing much sitting!!) brian is a little concerned about her husband's well-being with the two of us gals together for a whole week... but she assured me that he'll be glad i'm there to entertain her! whatever it is, we'll have a ball doing it. hopefully i'll have time to post our activities throughout the week.

ok, that laundry still needs to be folded. yes, i did get a lot done today!!! i just saved the laundry for last. :) so, the olympics will keep me company while i fold and sort... too bad there's not a medal for laundry.

3 more days!

excitement is building for our trip!! 3 is how many days are left till we leave... it's how many loads of laundry are on my couch waiting to be folded... it's how many loads of dirty laundry are waiting to be washed...it's how many awful naps ethan took today...BUT it has been a good day. brian was off work (yay for presidents' day!), and we got a lot done... just not laundry!! we put a different desk in the guest room/office, and the room is looking good! ethan, despite his awful naps due to teething, was really happy most of the day. i was sure he'd crash before bedtime, but he was bright-eyed and bushy tailed till i laid him in bed... and then he was out fast. praise God for some sort of order amidst the disorder!! i can always count on a good night's sleep for ethan no matter how i mess up his day. alrighty, this laundry is about to overtake the living room, so i'd better get busy.

4 days till takeoff!

ethan and i have an exciting day coming up this week... it will be his first airplane ride, and it will be my first time to see my dear friend lori since 1997!!! and i get to meet her 3 kids and spend a week with her, and i am so so excited!!!! (she is not the least bit excited...haha. so kidding. she is making me feel so welcome, and i'm not even there yet!) ethan and i will also be visiting some other friends and family in the area...pregnant kim, kari and her new house, amanda and that new ring, and of course, uncle tom & aunt pam! can't wait to see everybody!!

we have a lot to do before we leave on thursday.... i am glad we're flying instead of driving, though i've never flown w/ a baby before... so we'll see how it goes. any traveling suggestions from experienced moms?

gotta go start packing! thursday will be here before i know it!

aye, a wee lassie

ethan and i got to visit with hope, adam, and alanna today. they're on a whirlwind visit home from their mission field of beautiful scotland... and they carved out some time to come see us! alanna and ethan really didn't play with each other too much, but the mommas enjoyed seeing each other, and adam bench pressed my hefty son!! :) i didn't take any pictures while they were here because hope was having enough fun with her new camera for the both of us. :) so i'll post some pictures when hope emails them to me. i WAS able to record ethan's feelings about their visit...

raise your hand if you want some visitors from scotland!

WHAT? there was a cute little girl here, and i didn't really notice?
am i BLIND?

aw man... i wish they would have stayed longer...

it was great to see you guys. God bless your ministry. :)

dance, baby!

well here's our latest trick! ethan has learned to shake his head from side to side... it's pretty darn cute. rather than encouraging him to tell us "no" all the time (which, really, that's not what he's doing), nana came up with calling this "dancing"... so there we have it. now, in this video, i have to "dance" to get ethan to do it... so that's what all the motion is about... i'm not that horrible of a videographer!!

every day i do

valentine's day has come and gone, and with that day enters the excitement of love and flowers and special sentiments from your valentine. we had a wonderfully relaxing valentine's day here. on valentine's eve, brian came home with white roses that look beautiful in our white linen bedroom. the next morning, i began my surprises for him. :) i snuck out to his car and put heart window sticky things all over the inside of his windows. he was also greeted with messages of love written on his windows. though he thought this was cute, he also reminded me that "he worked at a place that makes things that blow up and hurt people, and he couldn't drive through security with hearts on his windows"... aww shucks. :) i went to mops that morning, where we were greatly encouraged by a wife of over 30 years on how to love our husbands and bring glory to God. it was awesome!! i don't think there was a dry eye in the room. i hurried home because brian was taking the afternoon off to spend with me. before he got home, i had hearts hanging in every doorway of our house. (they're still there, actually.) on each heart, i wrote something that i loved about him. i originally had cut out one heart for each doorway, but i kept thinking of things i loved, so i had to keep making more hearts! when he got home, we had a romantic lunch of heart-shaped grilled cheese, and then we had the whole afternoon to relax! it was a blessing. later that evening, we went to our valentine's day restaurant, topped off by marble slab ice cream. :) oh, and i put the hearts back up on his car windows for our evening out.


though valentine's day was special, i'm so thankful that brian doesn't wait till february 14 every year to tell me that he loves me. he remembers those vows we committed to on our wedding day, and he lives them out all year long. he's the picture of patience with me!!!! (i can't put sufficient emphasis on that!) he is a wonderful husband and daddy, and ethan and i are blessed to have him take such good care of us!! inside our wedding bands is engraved "every day i do". we stole this phrase from one message in a series on relationships (click here for the mp3 file) at covenant life church that really encouraged us before we got married. eric simmons talked about how The Wedding Day that is most important is not the wedding day when you become husband and wife... it's the Day that we will become the bride of Christ! and every day leading up to that Wedding Day is a day to say "i do" to God. as much as we looked forward to our wedding day of becoming "mr. and mrs.", there is a Day that we should look forward to even more! this message helped us remember that getting married was not the end of our waiting and anticipation and excitement. it should be the beginning. and to us, this phrase "every day i do" also reminds us of the day we exchanged our wedding vows...how we vowed those words for life. it's our little secret phrase... well, it was. ha. sorry honey. :)

i love my boys...

here's some shots of quality father-son time around our house. i love the way brian loves ethan, and i love the way ethan laughs at his daddy. :)

i'm a sucker for guys in khakis and white shirts...

bear hug

raise your hand if you love daddy!

this morning, ethan woke up extra early...especially for a monday morning! after feeding him, i put him in the MIDDLE of our bed while i got brian's clothes and lunch ready... i came back to bed, and this is what i found...

and brian says i hog the bed...

jack is back!

praise God that jackson bortz is back with his family... the lack of accountability with atlanta's DFCS has been a nightmare for the bortz family for the last month. read more here. please continue to pray that he can return to his own home soon. at least his family can now visit him and know that he is well taken care of. what a testimony of faith and perserverance.

what a wonderful way to celebrate my 100th post. :)

another month gone by...

i can't believe how quickly january flew by. i know as soon as ethan starts crawling, the days will zoom by even faster!! this little boy just lights up our life. we are humbled and blessed that God chose us to be his parents. i can't wait to see what he'll be like as he grows older, but at the same time, i want to stop time and just enjoy him right where he is right now. he'll never be 6 months old again. that is weird.

some of you will remember when ethan had his first bear sighting... (oh my goodness, has he really changed that much??)


well, he has been tracking that bear for 3 months, and today he was victorious...

grrr... i finally got you, bear.

mom! dad! i got the bear by his tie! i got 'em!

what do you mean i need a hunting license?

that's no fun...

maybe next time, baby boy... happy birthday.

good eating...

elisabeth elliot is one of my favorite authors...if you knew me in college, you had to know about the whole row on my bookshelf dedicated to her writings. :) i've subscribed to her daily devotional email, which is an excerpt each day from her great books! (ashley, did you know about this??) today's devotional was just what i needed to read. i thought i'd share....

If you're hungry, the airport in Fayetteville, Arkansas, is not a good place to be. The selection of "snacks" in the vending machine is impressive, but there is nothing at all that one could call food. You can insert your quarters, nickels and dimes (no pennies) and get chocolate chip cookies, potato chips (plain), potato chips with "bar-B-Q" flavor, potato chips with sour cream and onion (artificial) flavor, potato "Stix," pork rinds, corn chips, "Cornies," "Pub Fries," "Cheddar Fries," "Cheetos," "Cheese Smackers," and things called "Doritos," "Bugles," "yammers" and "Dunkums."

Alongside that machine is another one offering brightly colored aluminum cans of sweet fizzy stuff with which to wash down all those snacks or, I suppose, to Dunkum. I don't like to contemplate what state your blood sugar or your nerves or your sanctification would be in if your supper comprised a Tab and a package of Jammers, but on second thought, a look around the boarding lounge of almost any airport--at the facial expressions, the behavior of the pre-school-age tots, and the remarks overheard--give a clue. We are a nation "overfed but undernourished," to borrow the title of Curtis Wood's book.

Junk food is not nourishment. It's easily available (if you have the right coins). It is packaged up in eye-catching wrappings, presumably untouched by human hands. It can be transported to plane, to beach, to movie theatre, to school, to bed. It can be grabbed in a moment, wolfed down on the run; and there are no preparations to make, nothing to clean up except greasy fingers. It does away altogether with the ritual of eating--the laid table, the attractive presentation of a dish, the fellowship with others, the leisure to enjoy. In a world that has lost or discarded nearly all other rituals, what will become of us if we do away with even this one?

But worst of all, junk food feeds (feeding will make you fat) but does not nourish. Nourishment makes you strong. I sat on the molded fiberglass seat in Fayetteville, waiting for the small plane which would take me to Tulsa, and wished for a few crunchy fat Bing cherries or a slice of the wheat-honey bread that I make regularly at home--real food.

Don't misunderstand. I like potato chips. I like Cheetos. I haven't tried the commercially packaged pork rinds, but I certainly enjoyed the kind the Indians gave me in South America--fished out of a cauldron of hot fat bubbling over an open fire in some jungle clearing, eaten with a chunk of steamed manioc or a plantain roasted in the ashes.

We are people of our times and culture. Because of the "schedule" I seem to be obliged to keep, I am always looking for ways to use my time more efficiently, and one of them is to listen to tapes while I do my hair and face. I switched the recorder off the other day, disgusted with what I told my husband was spiritual junk food. A man was rambling on about his own feelings, his "meaningful" experiences, and how he got in touch with himself, with other people, and with God. No doubt he was telling the truth, but there wasn't a single reference to Scripture, and not much there that would nourish me.

Christian bookstores usually carry some real "meat," if you can find it. It is not likely to be up front where the paperbacks, the tapes and the records are, which display on their jackets color photographs of the author, the speaker or the singer, often taken in an open meadow, in a soft, misty light, and with a few wildflowers. (Are there any analogies here artificial color, perhaps, or flavor? What about preservatives? I understand preservatives are used in foods to give a longer "shelf life." The booksellers have thought of some tricks, I'm sure, to keep their wares in the public eye for a few weeks longer, but no trick takes the place of quality for preserving a book's shelf life.)

Tastes are developed. Solzhenitsyn, in his speech at Harvard a few months ago, deplored the "TV stupor" in which Americans live. He spoke of the decadence of art, of intolerable music, of mass prejudice, spiritual exhaustion, material luxury, and a morally inferior happiness. He is right. Alas, his own experience of totalitarianism and concentration camp gives him the perspective and the authority to judge our society. We must hear him.

Doctors have been learning of the physical exhaustion that can result from artificial or refined or highly sugared foods. Might not one cause of the spiritual exhaustion which Solzhenitsyn observes be the spiritual junk food we consume? What shall be done for the child fed on the snack-pack, the soft drink and the TV dinner? Will he never choose, let alone enjoy, vegetables? Will the Christian whose spiritual sustenance has been limited to the mass-produced, who is accustomed only to "snacking," whose tastes have been conditioned by the majority, ever choose what is truly nourishing?

What it comes down to, with regard to spiritual things, is that we ought to learn to do some of our own cooking. Granted, it is much easier to grab a package. But sometimes we ought to start from scratch.

Let us start with silence. That may be the hardest thing to achieve in our world. But it is not impossible. For one thing, it takes the will to be quiet. It is possible to be quiet on a crowded subway or in the kitchen when the bacon is frying, the washing machine is running and the baby wants more milk. It is easier by far to be quiet when things around us are quiet, and for most of us this means getting up early.

I was in my study this morning before the traffic had started up on Route 1A. No sound came from the road or the house. Only the sweet susurrus of the crickets in the grass and the cawing of a crow in a beech tree broke the silence, yet it took also an act of the will to be still and know that He is God. My mind races quite naturally over things done yesterday (burying a beloved friend's beloved little dog, getting my sister from the hospital, swimming in the ocean, writing a page or two) or things to be done today (writing more than a page or two, having a friend to tea, getting my mother from the airport). Be still. It is a command. The Hebrew word used in Psalm 46 can mean "Shut up."

The great books that have been spiritual meat and drink for me have been produced, I feel sure, out of great silence. Men and women of God have learned of him by being quiet and allowing him to speak to them in their solitude. They have been willing to be alone, to shut up, to listen, and to think and pray over what they have heard. In our modern world most people choose noise. Go to the beach or a forest camp and find portable radios, television sets, record players. Sit down in a waiting room and listen to what Malcolm Muggeridge calls that "drooling melange" of Muzak. People want noise. They would far rather discuss than think, talk over their problems than pray about them, read a paperback about what somebody else thinks about the Bible than read the Bible.

We cannot stand stillness. Yet we need it. I wonder if the popularity of transcendental meditation is due to this felt need. Whatever may be said about TM's being a religion or not, the measure of success it seems to enjoy could be attributed in part to the simple fact that its devotees spend a certain amount of time daily in motionless silence. That can't hurt anybody.

As one of those who write the stuff that is for sale in the bookstores I referred to, I know that responsibility is laid upon me to provide real food. So I speak to myself-- I must do my own "cooking." It is not fast food that I ought to provide for my reader. I must feed him, but in order to do that I must myself be fed. What I speak or write must come out of silence where only a still small voice can be heard.

I speak also to my reader. Seek what is good for the soul, even if it doesn't come in paperback. Read an old book once in a while. (Try P. T. Forsyth, The Principle of Authority, or Luther's Letters of Spiritual Counsel.) And once in a while lay aside the books and the tapes. For a set period of time be alone, be still. "The man who lives on me will live because of me," Jesus said. "This is the bread which came down from heaven."

Copyright© 1979, by Elisabeth Elliot
all rights reserved.