Best of Waco, Back in Action

That's right, our having a second child and starting a scrapbooking business have encroached on our enjoying-Waco time, but you will forgive us for this, of course. In any event, we're back in it: our friends in the BOW club, the Barnards, brought over some malts from Health Camp (don't let the name fool you; I believe I gained a pound per spoonful).

What's most important here is probably the flavor of the malts, but that is an inadequate way to approach the subject. It is in inadequate in that it misleads the reader to think that the best way to describe what we enjoyed was a malt with some added flavors, those being peanut butter and hot fudge. This would be a serious error in description. No, what we enjoyed would be better described as a 16 oz. Styrofoam cup of intensely sweet peanut butter with a hint of some melty ice cream and some hot fudge smeared on the inner wall of the cup. Not a malt with some flavors; a FLAVOR in the shape of a malt. But "intensely sweet" is not the best way to describe the peanut buttery-ness; think Reese's Peanut Butter Cup peanut butter, volume turned up to 10. The peanut butter was equal parts sugar and peanut: sug-nut butter (pronounced shug-nut), pea-nugar butter, peanut sug-butt (that doesn't seem right, but its close).

We all agreed that adding hot fudge to a sug-nut butter malt is good in theory, but smearing it on the inside of the cup in small quantity seemed not to produce the same results had it actually been mixed in.

We recommend these malts, but you should hawk-watch the kid mixing the mix: when he says he's finished, ask him to return to the mixer for another spin, and add some more fudge, buddy.

Here's some pics (look closely at my right side...that love-handle? All the malt's fault):

From Waco to Musashino-Shi

I have to say I am very proud of Diane. d. reeves design house is going very well; Diane's gifts and creativity are really shining, and are being confirmed by others in the scrapbook industry (there's an industry? yep, a whole industry). Consider this one expression of my rising up and calling her blessed...
An editor of a Japanese scrapbook magazine (the industry is global? yep, global) ordered a sample of d. reeves products for a mini-album story she is doing for the mag. We just tracked the shipment: it has left Waco, spent a few minutes in Memphis, and promptly flew to Narita-Shi, Tokyo, Japan. Final destination: Musashino-Shi, Tokyo, Japan. I know! All the way to Musashino-Shi! We did a quick Google search for Narita-Shi to see where it sits in relation to Musashino-Shi...we didn't find much, which, incidentally, adds to the exotic mystery.

If you have extra time, Google the Shi's of Musashino or Narita and send us a map. Make sure its got those neat red lines like in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom".

Emma's Gallery

For her birthday, Emma received a nice easel. This seems to have set her right-brain to turning; these three pictures she called "Circles". Click the pics to see them larger.





After her "shape study", Emma drew this, which she called (no joke) "Rain on a Window":

"Birthday, the 3rd: a photo narrative, part the third"

"Birthday, the 3rd: a photo narrative, part two"

"Birthday, the 3rd: a photo narrative"

Our Own Lives?

I have a friend who is spending the summer in the Middle East working on some sociology project. She mentioned on her blog a conversation she had with some of her friends there regarding the marrying of men based on their level of cleanliness (in context, the conversation made loads more sense than it sounds here).

While I don't have any immediate insight with regard to the "messy/tidy" man question, I am interested in this sentence from the conversation:

"Would she (a wife who excels at keeping her husband "tidy") have time for anything else if she is always cleaning after her husband? Maybe a messy-looking guy is preferable because his wife would have more time to herself and have her own life, but compromise with a less-than clean-looking husband."

It is a strange expectation, in my sometimes-not-humble-enough opinion, that once a man and a woman become "one flesh", that either of them would maintain anything that would warrant being called his or her "own life." A man and a woman enter into the marriage covenant precisely because they have discovered that it is not good to be alone, and that it is very good to be together; why would they, then, want to go on being alone?

This seems to me a symptom of an already and implicitly accepted centering of the individual, where everything is ushered through the filter of the survival and happiness of "I". Sure there are communities, but they are understood primarily as the individual-voluntary gathering of individuals who have implicitly agreed that "I can come and go as it suits me, and I will remain here in as much as it is good for me and my interests or it holds my attention span." This life is much like a rave: sure I'm at the "club" (a quick nod to the idea of community), but I am dancing my own dance in my own space; near other people, but certainly not with them." And in case you can't tell, that sentence is meant to be critical.

Imagine a community whose members, rather than primarily seeking to hold onto their own lives, actually seek to give up their own lives in service to the others. Imagine a marriage that works this way! Imagine individual people who seek to enter into marriage in order that they might give up their "own lives" in service to their spouse! Here's an interesting test: if the preceding sentences sound repulsive, we should ask "why?" "Do I consider myself 'first' or 'last'"?

This is surely all a great mystery, as Paul was quick to declare. But it is a good mystery, for it is to push us forward to a better Marriage, the consummate Marriage of The Husband and His Bride: the One lays His life down for the other, the other returns all praise and thanksgiving to the One.

Jeremy

I don't think that's how this is supposed to work...

Stella is a stunt-woman. I don't know if this is because she is fearlessly brave, or if she has not fallen down enough times to remember what pain is like; regardless of the reason, she is stunt-ish. Here's some proof-pics:

my other blog

So I started another blog, it is my creative blog. I post things about my crafts, scrapbooking, house stuff and the girls. Feel free to check it out.

dianereeves.blogspot.com

Have a good day.

Waterdeep

I feel so old school talking about Waterdeep, but Jeremy and I have been listening to them lately. In particular, we are listening to their old stuff album. I have the blue disk at home and J has the green/yellow disk at work. The first time I heard a Waterdeep song I was at my friend Sarah's house in Kingwood. It was the summer before my freshman year at Baylor. We were hanging out upstairs and her older sister, Rebekah was playing the Sink or Swim cd. Sink or Swim was the first song I heard. I remember thinking Wow, Christian music doesn't have to be cheesy and from that point on my standerd for a Christain song was much higher. When Jeremy and I were dating one of our favorite things to do was go to their concerts. So fun, it's been a long time. You should check it out.

New Post, Old Pics

These pics are a bit "old" ("old" compared to today, down-right newborn compared to, say, the writing of the Pentateuch...take your pick). In any event, they are shots of Emma's first haircut. She got to sit in a Jeep; when I get my hair cut, all I get is a lousy chair with an ill-adjusted footrest.

Enjoy!

Here we are, we are here

Sometimes the dishes don't get washed, and the dirty clothes pile up, and I can't remember when I mowed the lawn last. Sometimes we just enjoy being here, with each other.

Aunt Nay Nay

Recently, we enjoyed a visit from Aunt Nay Nay, also known as Janee, also known as Actress Extraordinaire, also known as my sister. Aunt Nay Nay and Emma both donned aprons, and went straight to work on a batch of cookies. Action shots here:

Giving Thanks

For Thanksgiving, we traveled to Houston. It was Stella's first road trip, and when we told her the plan, we are pretty sure she said, "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis?". Pretty sure. During the holiday, Emma painted, Uncle Glenn practiced being Daddy (hold her like a baby, Glenn, not a Yule Log), we ate, and there was a kids' table.

Today was Stella's first day at Redeemer. She did well and I actually got to hear the entire sermon. I tried to get a picture of the girls so I could scrapbook this occasion and this is what I got. You can't always get the little ones to cooperate can you? After church our community group from church met for lunch at Cameron Park. It was a gorgeous day out there and very busy, lots of frisbee golfers and people running in a marathon. Emma got to feed the ducks with some of the kids in our group. It is so neat seeing friends love on our kids and play with them. It is such a gift to be a part of a community. It was good to hang out.

Early Arrival

So, of course, we are sorry for the delay. But, if you consider that Stella came a week early, then we are actually telling the story before it is supposed to happen; how can you call that a delay?

Diane's contractions began on Thursday the 14th, and were the of the kind to cause no concern; preparatory is what they're called. If those contractions job is to prepare us, they're fired. On Friday, the "preparatory" contractions continued. They were irregular, far apart, short...the kind that cause no concern.
Saturday, Diane and Zeze (Jeremy's mom) went to a scrapbooking class from 4-7 p.m. taught by a world-renowned scrapper, Ali Edwards (we know we know, we'll try to get her autograph for you). During the class the contractions got more painful, but only curiously stronger. They were strong enough to pause Diane's scrapping, but really not so strong as to cause concern. The other scrapping ladies cheered Diane to continue the scrap-work, and with their encouragement she endured. Did I mention that before a meal before the scrap class, we prayed that Stella wouldn't come until after the class? God is good, He hears us.
When Diane and Zeze got home, the contractions were enough to lay Diane down, and Jeremy was set to fist-rubbing her lower back in that spot that contractions really seem to bother. Really, nothing to be concerned about. Then, during a rather laid back effort to pack bags for the hospital (still a week till she's due, after all), something broke: yep, it was water. It was at that moment that we thought we ought to get concerned, and we decided it was off to the hospital. But first...

(in the bedroom)
Diane: "Let me just use the restroom before we go"
Jeremy: "Okay, but then we need to get in the car and go."

(in the bathroom)
Diane: "I think I'm having the baby!"
Jeremy: "Zeze, call 911! We're having the baby!"

(in the kitchen)
Emma: What's that noise?!"
Papa: Oh, don't you worry about that. Want some more chocolate milk?"

(laying on the bathroom floor)
Diane: "Is she out yet?!"
Jeremy: "Nope...Yep!"
Stella: "Wah...Waaaaah!"

And at about 8:15pm, on the bathroom floor at our house, we had our second daughter. We rode to the hospital in an ambulance rather than the family car, the rest is all pretty normal.

Stella was 6lbs. 4oz., 19 inches long, and pretty much looks just like her big sister. Here's some pics: