Jacob's Basketball

So after our vacation break, Jacob got back to basketball this morning. Just a couple of photos to share. He is doing well. None of the kids get the whole double dribble concept...heck, some of them forget about dribbling entirely, but it was fun to watch and they all have made progress already this season. Jacob scored twice today and had great passing, defense, rebounding and dribbling. I was very impressed!

Dribbling drill...and his head is up, not down.  Nice!

Driving around the excited? defense!

Surveying the defense.

Out of Diapers!

I posted this on FaceBook, for which Linda gave me grief :)

However, as of this last week, Jude has been wearing underwear all day and been wearing diapers/pullups only for bed. He is very close to not needing that as well.

I can't believe it. We are about to be a diaper free household for the first time in 8 and a half years. If that is not a landmark worth posting about, I don't know what is!

So, that $.05-$.10 per diaper that I was throwing into the trash bin will be immediately consumed by something else...but, it is nice that it won't be quite so obvious that I am literally throwing money away.

Congratulations Jude. So, what is the next landmark on the horizon for us? All in school? (only a couple years out)

Read a few books lately

So, read 4 books with Jaden so far this year as we finished up the Deltora series we have been reading. Books 5-8 of the Deltora Quest series as we had to get done to turn the books in on time.
I also read an interesting book about how God created the universe as far as we understand based on the science we know at this point. Called the creator and the cosmos. It was a fantastic read that was certainly more than I understood or still understand...but it certainly put things into a cool light...based on what science has put together so far.
Finally, jaden and I are just finishing up a book for "teens" by Frank Peretti which has been really enjoyable called the Veritas Project...definitely worth checking out. And for me, I am finishing up a really short read given out by the church earlier this year called 'How Good is Good Enough?". It is a really good synopsis of why Christianity is different than other religions and why the standard thinking of "good people go to heaven" can't hold water.
Anyway, kind of interesting that in a month and a half, I have gone thru 7 books...when I didn't set any goals for books this year...versus the past where it seems I have been slower to get thru things, even with a goal to get thru so many books in a year.

Answered prayers

God certainly answers prayers! I had a hard couple days and was a little frustrated with Men's ministry stuff and work stuff and home stuff. Part of it was feeling that over the last few weeks that what I was doing was not actually having an impact. Well today at small group, one of the men talked specifically about a god moment this week that he attributed to the fact that he has this small group to go to...something that I feel is important and have kept up despite difficulty...and not feeling that I have time and I get an awesome story about immediate life impact and spiritual growth.

Men's ministry activities starting to pick up

I haven't posted much about what I do, but since it takes up my time and energy...it is a significant part of my life at this point...it makes no sense for me not to include it. To that end, I am just posting to say I am working on the launch of our mens blog site. The goal is to launch at the beginning of the month...so keep your fingers crossed and say prayers to help me...because at this point, it is only me doing the work.

iPad

So...I caved. I bought the iPad this last week. This is my first post with it. I am already using it for work email and have downloaded a number of free interactive books for the kids...but I have ALOT to learn if it is going to be as useful as what I am ultimately hoping for. I did buy the more expensive version so that I can enable the data plan outside of the LAN functionality, but I have yet to enable it. I am looking to enable that and take the data plan off of my phone...make it a phone only again, if at&t will let me do that...
Anyway, stay tuned and I will probably post more about how I like the iPad and what I am using it for...though I really need to figu out how to add pictures to blog posts while on the iPad.

Bible in a year

Made a commitment with the men of the church to go through the bible in a year with them. Starting a new blog for mens ministry at the church to help do that and promote other stuff. I hope it will not be overwhelming...but, I am excited by the potential.

Wordle

Love wordle...here is something I was just playing around with.

Happy MLK Day

I love the way Kristen tries to help the kids recognize why we have the day off today. Despite the craziness of the kids energy levels and their general inability to listen...hopefully they will remember part of what we talked about around the dinner table.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZLvSnr6s50&feature=youtube_gdata_player

No Excuse

I really have no excuse...other than laziness for not posting. Yes...the home computer crashing has had a significant impact.
Yes, Jacob's birthday party was this weekend.
Yes, I travelled to San Jose last week.
Really....still no excuse.
I am really hoping to get back to regular updates here shortly.