Take the poll!

For many weeks now, Zander has been slowly losing his hair. Except for his sweet little mullet. What do you think... Should I buzz it off? Yes or No, please take the poll on the right!

EWOW- Purpose of Life

I received this email, and had to share it. Something about this struck me. Deep. These are words that I needed to hear from a faithful man. But here's the email, and the EWOW for the week.......

You will enjoy the new insights that Rick Warren has, with his wife now having cancer and him having 'wealth' from the book sales. This is an absolutely incredible short interview with Rick Warren, 'Purpose Driven Life ' author and pastor of Saddleback Church in California.

In the interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said: People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven.
One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body-- but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity..
We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.
We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness. This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.
Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems: If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, which is my problem, my issues, my pain.' But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.
We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her- It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, II Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72. First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit.. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church.
Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation.
Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?
When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth just to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.
Happy moments, PRAISE GOD. Difficult moments, SEEK GOD. Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD. Painful moments, TRUST GOD. Every moment, THANK GOD..

Complete Randomness

These are just a collection of pictures from the last two weeks, and fun times we've had!

High School Girls! Katie, Mandy, Bri, Erin, Laura, and Lacey
at Erin's Iowa Reception

Me and my honey love!

Zander's first shoulder ride

Faith in Action- Our Faith Family went to the Neighborhood Center at Pheasant Ridge to clean classrooms. Here's more info on Faith in Action... http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/52834782.html

Zander is such a good sport. He's used to me putting all my stuff on him when we are getting ready to leave the house. What a gentleman! He must have learned that from Daddy, whose also used to me asking, "Can you put this in your pocket?"

Crazy Storm coming in last week!

Big Highlight was going swimming for the first time last week. Well as you can tell from the pics, more like lounging! He was awesome!

Just chillin'

Thanks Bridge and Liam for asking us to go, and letting us use your little floaty raft!

The very next day we did it again! Playgroup at Missy's. Forrest was such a good babysitter.

I swear I heard Zander laugh out loud yesterday! He's been such a joy to be around!

Zander also starting sitting in the bumbo this week. He looks like such a big boy in it! Can you tell what Andy wants Zander's first word to be?

EWOW- In the Morning

I'm starting a new thing... Well sorta! Some of my best friends from Iowa State, Ada, Cass, and Brit and I started this last fall. We have all scattered across the country and world so to do a better job of keeping in contact and encouraging each other, we came up with a weekly email called an EWOW (Encouraging Words of the Week) I'm now bringing it to the blog world. So here's the first one!

IN THE MORNING

A little over a week ago, I got an email from my friend Jamie saying she wants to start a 5 o'clock club. Which basically means knowing that other ladies are getting up at 5 am to start their day with Jesus. Free of distractions from kiddos, and day to day grind "stuff". I loved this idea, but with Zander getting up sometime in the 5 oclock range I thought, I'll just stay up whenever he get's up in that range. After the first day of doing this, I was reading in Psalms and came across a couple verses with the phase "in the morning" in them. AHA! For those of you that know me I LOVE topical studies! So I did one on the phase "in the morning" In the ESV that phase is used 100 times, and I read every one of those, and found out 33 out of 100 times "in the morning" is referring to spending time or worshiping God in the morning!

I have been both encouraged and challenged by this as each morning God feeds my soul during this time. I get my cup o' joe, colored pencils, and am satisfied IN HIM!

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Psalm 90:14

So if you desire to spend more time with God come join me in the morning... whether it's at 5 am, or 7am, whatever works for you! Afterall Jesus liked mornings too, by the sounds of it, he was more of a 5 o'clock guy!

And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed.

Mark 1:35

Colorado

The mountains melt like wax before the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth. The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory. Psalm 97:5-6


One of my dearest High School friends, Erin (beautiful blond pictured in the middle) got married in Colorado Springs last weekend. We wouldn't have missed it! Andy sang Angel, by Jack Johnson during the ceremony, and I read scripture. The outdoor wedding was absolutely gorgeous, with the mountains in the background. Although both Andy and I love Colorado it was the friends that made it so wonderful. Although we are all very different, and live in different places, these girls will always mean so much to me! (and it's always a blast reminiscing about those good ol' St. Ansgar days!

At the rehearsal dinner: Mandy Merten, Amy Ask, Erin Tjaden, me, and Brianne Fossey

me, Amy Ask, Tina May, Erin Tjaden, Mandy Merten, Brianne Fossey, Kristy Bonestro

We accepted Seth into the group!

Everything about the wedding was fabulous! From the ceremony, to the cocktails, to the amazing meal, and the dance!

Oh yeah, this is our 7th wedding of the summer. Zanders 4th already, and we squeezed that tie outfit on for one last time. (for real this time!)

We stayed at the Cheyenne Mountain Resort, which was incredible! Here's the view from the pool!

My mom, SUPER BABYSITTER, was so great to have there! The brides mom and her are great friends as well. We bonded :) I really enjoyed our car trip out there listening to "sleeping freshmen never lie" a lighthearted book on CD, ate never ending snacks, listened to Tyrone Wells, ate more snacks, stopped and enjoyed Lasso Espresso, and finished the trip with snacks!

We made great use of our time while there. Enjoying the mountains and being together!

We drove up to Pikes Pike. As you can see from this picture, 14,000 ft. Just so you all know, think twice before taking your 2 month old this high. I felt like such a bad mom. I didn't think about this until after we were up there, and I started breathing heavy, I thought Zander might have a hard time breathing as well. Poor buddy :( All of a sudden I was like "Andy we have got to get DOWN, ASAP! " There's only been a couple times when I have been worried about Zander, this was one of them. It was bitter-sweet. Beautiful to be up there, but then realizing I may have put our sweet boy in danger made me sick. Again, I'm glad my mom was there! He made it! But I won't ever do that again with him!

Amy, Bri, Tina, and I enjoyed a great short and Sweet hike one day.

Baby Bjorn rocked for this! But I'm glad Andy was carrying him!

The Last day, we drove west of Denver to go white water rafting! I have never gone before, but Andy has gone once. We did the intermediate course, and it was a great mix of beautiful scenery, and intense rapids (to me anyway!) Again, HUGE thanks to my mom, we wouldn't have been able to go without her!

Here it comes! ahhhhhhhhhh! (Andy is front right, and I'm directly behind him)

AHHHHHhh, there I go! Andy is still looking strong though! or wait... that's his foot sticking up next to the raft! The professionals stayed on. I had no chance, and I think Andy either felt bad for me, or just wanted to get wet!

All in all, it was a great vacation! If I haven't said it yet, it was so great to have my mom there! God's creation is beautiful! And Zander was being his usual self. Very difficult as you can see from this picture! I love him SOooooo much!